


A Falling Star

by bouquetofwhoopsiedaisies



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alien Biology, Alien Cultural Differences, Alien Gender/Sexuality, Alien Sex, Aliens, Blood, Cultural Differences, Explicit content ONLY in chapter 3, F/M, Keith's father's name is subject to change with canon, Pregnancy, Rating will go up later, Xenobiology, but only in the first chapter, final chapter is fluff fluff angst fluffy angst ANGST, moderate description of injury, now featuring Baby Keith!, rating has gone up, the rest of the chapters will stay T at the most
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-20
Updated: 2018-06-13
Packaged: 2019-05-09 09:06:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 24,897
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14713185
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bouquetofwhoopsiedaisies/pseuds/bouquetofwhoopsiedaisies
Summary: Her orders were to go to Earth to search for something and remain on planet to defend it from any Galra that might attack.  That was it.  Striking a bird a low-altitude, crashing her ship into the desert, and getting injured?  That was not part of the plan.  Nor was being found and taken care of by an Earthling.  And growing to love him, and even having a child with him?  That was most certainly not part of the plan.It was a good thing Krolia was good at thinking on her feet, and adapting her plans.





	1. First Contact

**Author's Note:**

> I said I wasn't going to write Krolia/Keith's dad until we got a name for him, buuuuut I was just itching to write this so I sucked it up and just named him Ken. If we get a canon name for him I'll go back and change it. 
> 
> This is technically in the same AU as my Keith and the Blade of Marmora series, or at least compliant with it, but can be read on its own.

Krolia was a highly-trained special operations agent of a top-secret infiltration organization.  She knew how to rig up complex bombs.  She knew what to do to remain undiscovered in dangerous undercover missions.  She knew dozens of code systems that her organization cycled through to disguise their information.  She could repair a broken engine in under ten doboshes with only a single wrench, a hairpin, and her own wits.  

The fact that a quiznaking  _bird_ was taking her down now, in low altitude, was absolutely ridiculous.  

"Windshield is broken, the Terran creature's blood and feathers are everywhere."  Krolia spoke into the recording device inside her mask.  The mask and its regulatory system were the only things keeping her alive right now, as she sped toward the red surface of the planet (she could have sworn this place looked green and blue from further out) with a large hole blown through her windshield and the glass smeared with blood.  The ship lurched and she righted the controls as best she could.  "Left engine is out; the creature's body was sucked in and jammed it."  Flying with one engine was nothing, she had trained for that.  Flying with one engine, a hole in her windshield, and covered in blood, though... well, she had made do with worse. 

The ground below grew closer and she let go of the controls with one hand to grasp the thruster lever.  "Impact imminent in five ticks, preparing for emergency landing.  Three, two, one..."  She yanked hard on the thrusters and what little fuel she had left in them burst to life, slowing her descent to something non-lethal.  A painful landing, though, was inevitable.  The seatbelts kept her fastened to the pilot chair, but couldn't stop her head from whacking against the back of the seat.  On impact, what was left of her windshield shattered and flew into the cockpit with a cloud of dry dirt and rocks, and Krolia cried out as an especially large chunk of glass pierced her in the side, large enough to cut through her suit's armor.  The ship ground to a halt with an almighty groan, dust and smoke filling the ruined cockpit.  

Krolia took a moment to catch her breath before her next update.  "Made contact on planet Terra.  Ship is destroyed, will assess damage momentarily."  As soon as she managed to cut her way free, that is.  Her suit was built to withstand a tremendous amount of heat as well as the sub-zero temperatures of outer space.  The metal buckles on the seatbelts, however, were not, and had fused shut.  She slipped her knife out and deftly sawed through the belts, then stood up as much as she could in the crumpled cockpit.  A burst of pain ran up her right side at the movement, and she braced her back against the wall, grasped the shard of glass embedded in her side, took a deep breath, and pulled it out.  The pain was excruciating, but quietly and quickly dealing with serious wounds was a necessity in her line of work.  If you couldn't, then you didn't make it.   Still, she had to blink back black fuzzy spots from her vision as the pain lessened enough for her to think clearly again. 

"Pierced injury in right side due to windshield glass.  Does not seem to have punctured any organs."  She told her update system.  The glass fell to the floor with a  _clack,_ both it and her hand painted a bright, cherry red.  "I'll... deal with it."  There was a first aid kit in the survival bag.  She would have to get free of the ship, find somewhere safe, and suture herself before she lost too much blood.  

Pressing a hand to her wound, she activated her knife to its longer, stronger form and cut a hole in the hull of her ship (the door was completely impassable in the ship's current state).  She had to let go of her wound to haul herself up through the hole, and her sharp eyes took in her surroundings as she dropped to the ground.  

"Planet's closest star is shining brightly in the sky."  She said, looking around.  "This place is barren.  Red rocks and little vegetation, no water in sight.  I don't know why Agent 1216 thought the weapon associated with water would be hidden here."  It was an unprofessional quip to be included in an official report, but he deserved to know what an idiot he was.  Especially if his mistake was going to get her killed.  

A beep echoed in her ear, though she hardly needed it with the headache beating against her skull and the tightness in her lungs.  "Regulator oxygen levels are low.  Intel shows that this planet's lower atmosphere is breathable."  She was going to kill the agent in question if that was wrong.  "Removing mask now."  

Without the automatic protective tint from the mask, Krolia squinted against the bright sunlight.  Ridiculously bright.  How could anything live here?  But she was able to take a breath, and her lungs thanked her for it.

…She was still going to kill Ulaz the next time she saw him, though.  

"Atmosphere is breathable."  She resisted the urge to grumble.  She looked down at her side, bright red staining her suit and skin.  "Wound is losing blood.  Will deal with as soon as possible."  But where?  There was nothing in sight.  No forests, no natural shelters, not even a cave.  Just an endless expanse of red and orange rocks peppered with sparse vegetation and strange, fork shaped... things.  She approached one, eyes narrowing.  It was a greenish color, presumably a type of vegetation, but it was covered in spikes like an iusak's armor.  She lifted a scanner to it and found that it was indeed a type of plant, and that a surprising percentage of it was composed of water.  Excellent.  She removed the gun from the holster on her hip and took aim at the center of the trunk.  The spines would be too bothersome to deal with for her knife; she would just blast a hole in the thing and retrieve the water faster.

"You leave that poor cactus alone, what did it ever do to you?"  A soft voice with a light drawl spoke up behind her.

Krolia whipped around and trained her gun on the intruder instead, grasping it with both hands.  A Terran stood a short distance away from her, its own crude firearm aimed at her.  The creature looked... remarkably Galra-like in form, but much shorter, not so much hair, and light tan skin rather than purple.  Its eyes – a pale, grey-blue rather than yellow, with a visible iris and pupil like Krolia's people – widened in shock at the sight of her face.  Its... or maybe his?  It looked a bit like a male-leaning Galra...  _his_ mouth dropped open and he looked stunned.  She supposed they didn't have anything like her on this backwater planet.  

"Oh my god."  The Terran whispered under his breath.

Krolia blinked, the translator in her ear faltering over two of those three words.  Exclamation-my-deity?  Did... did he think her a deity?

She narrowed her eyes.  "Identify yourself."  

A rush of air left his nose, and she realized he just  _laughed_ at her.  "This is my land, on my planet.  You're the one that fell from the sky.  You identify yourself."  He told her.

Her eyes widened briefly before narrowing in suspicion once more.  "You do not need to know who I am or what business I am on."

"Yeah, but I'm asking nicely."

"A weapon pointed at me is 'asking nicely', is it?"  She ached an eyebrow at him.  

He raised his own scarred brow right back at her, the corner of his mouth pulling up in a smirk.  "How about we both put down our guns and introduce ourselves like civilized people, then?"  

Krolia considered it.  "Fine.  Guns down."  

The two of them slowly lowered their weapons and placed them on the on the sandy, orange-brown dirt underfoot.  The Terran straightened up just as slow, holding his hands up by his head. Krolia winced dramatically and made a show of looking down at her wound – careful to keep an eye on him – before reaching for her waist like she was in pain...

She had grabbed her blade and had it pressed to the Terran's throat faster than he could blink.  

"...Yeah, I should have expected that."  He grunted, not resisting as she pushed him up against the ruined hull of her ship.  

"Identify yourself."  Krolia demanded.  "This quadrant of the planet is supposed to be deserted.  Why are you here?"  

"Deserted?"  The Terran blinked.  "Where did you get that from?"

"Where I get my intel is none of your concern."  Krolia pressed the blade into his skin, just shy of cutting the soft, unarmored flesh.  

"Well, they were wrong."  The Terran said.  "This place is a desert, but it's not deserted.  There's a town about thirty miles away.  And there are animals living all over the place out here.  What do you think I was hunting, tumbleweed?"  

The translator in her ear stumbled over that last word.  She hadn't the faintest idea what a 'falling-vagrant' was or why he would hunt it.  Maybe the small, furry creatures with long ears that he had tied to his pack?  "You still haven't identified yourself, Terran."

"What did you just call me?"  He looked confused.  

"Terran."  Her head was beginning to swim and she was nearing the end of her patience.  "A creature from the planet Terra.  This planet.  Or are you too stupid to comprehend that?"

"You know this planet is called 'Earth', right?"  He asked, and the bastard had the audacity to  _smile_ at her.  "Whoever gave you intel on this place, you should fire them."  

She growled lowly.  "I should just run you through and be done with—  _ah_!"  She broke off as a wave of pain radiated up her side, strong enough to loosen her grip on her knife.  It fell to the dirt with a clatter moments before she herself went down, her head feeling empty and light as zero-gravity.  She cursed and her vision swam as she looked down at the mess of red painting her side.  Too much, that was too much blood...

"Woah, woah," the Terran—Earth...ling, whatever he was, put a hand on her shoulder.  "Come on, let's get back to my place and take a look at that wound."  

"Your... place...?"  Getting the words out was a lot harder than it should be.  

"Yeah, I live nearby.  Just over that hill."  He was so small under her arm, but strong enough to support her weight.  "It's little better than a shack, really, but it's out of the sun and there's a well with water.  And a first aid kit, which I think you're in need of."  

"Have one."  She grunted. 

"Great, then we have two."  

"Wait."  She looked back at the wreckage, panicked.  She couldn't leave it.  "I... I need..."

"Your ship?  We can't take that with us."  He said.

"My blade..." She spotted it in the dirt where they had been standing, stark black and purple against the reddish-orange rocks.  

"This knife?"  He scooped it up and looked down at the glowing purple emblem on the base of the hilt.  "Looks pretty special."

"Give it."  She demanded.  It was  _hers_ and hers alone.  No one else was to handle it; it was her link with her brothers and sisters in arms.  She would rather die than be parted from it.  He had no right to even touch it.    

"Promise not to kill me first?"  He smirked wryly.

Krolia was about to snarl out that she would make no such promise, but her legs gave out from under her as a fresh burst of blood oozed out between the fingers pressed to her side.  

"Alright, take the damn knife," he shoved it into her hand as he threw her arm over his shoulder.  "For Pete's sake..."

...Who?  

Her thoughts became fuzzy and unclear after that, and she wasn't entirely sure she remained fully conscious for the whole time.  Her memories came in snapshots of blurry lines and sensations strung together through the pain.  Stumbling along the dry rocks... the firmness of his arm around her waist... a small house, instantly several degrees cooler inside... and then she was laying down on a too-short couch, her knees hanging off the end of it, and he was ripping open a packet of gauze with his teeth while trying to mop up the blood drenching her side.  Then, everything darkened to black and she fell under despite her every effort to stay awake.

~~~~~~~

When Krolia woke, it was dark in the shack, save for a lone candle that was burning on the table and bathing the room in a soft glow.  There was a woven blanket thrown over her and a pillow under her head.  The low table beside the couch, little more than a board of wood stacked on top of concrete blocks, held the candle, a red kit with a while plus sign on it, and her knife, with her survival pack sitting on the floor next to it.  That Terran—Earthling, Earthian, whatever – was nowhere in sight.  

Krolia pushed herself up, letting out a soft hiss at the pain.  She lifted the blanket and inspected the bandages taped to her skin.  He had cut her suit a bit to access the wound, it seemed, but she was glad the damage was minimal.  Both for the sake of being spared from having to request another suit from Kolivan upon her return, and, selfishly, for the sake of her own modesty; the idea of a strange, alien creature removing her suit while she was unconscious made her skin crawl and her fur stand up on end.

Seeing no point to trying to get up and move around in her state, Krolia sighed and laid back down.  To be safe, though, she reached over to the table and grabbed her blade.  The candle flickered as the movement disturbed the air, casting strange shadows around the room.  She couldn't reach the sheath at the small of her back, lying like this, so she settled for holding the blade in her hand and hiding it under the blanket.  Such a strange texture, she noticed.  Soft, yet the fibers were oddly wiry.  And such colorful, geometric patterns... 

Her eyes shifted to take in the surrounding room.  It was simple, yet crowded with objects that indicated it was well-lived in.  A shelf built into the wall holding several books, a ladder leading to a trapdoor on the ceiling, a tall bookshelf in the corner housing what looked like outdated – compared to Galran – technology and radio devices, a poster with mechanical specs taped to the wall, and a small, rudimentary kitchen along one wall.  A window was set into the wall the couch was beside, with a sheet of pale fabric taped to the wall around it, presumably for privacy, but she was unfamiliar with such a practice.  There were several cracks in the walls, but they had been carefully patched by the... whatever he was, she supposed.  He never identified himself, she noted sourly.  

As if on cue, her sharp ears picked up the scuff of footsteps over dry dirt as they approached the shack.  She tightened her grip on her knife under the blanket, eyes locked on the door as it opened.  

There he was again, with his dark, shaggy hair and silver-blue eyes, and that long, primitive firearm in his hand.  He smiled when he saw her.  "Oh, you're awake."  He set the gun down beside the door and, to her utter surprise,  _walked away from it_.  "How are you feeling?"  

Well, he did technically save her life.  She supposed she did owe him a status update.  "Fine."  It didn't have to be a detailed status update.  

"You look less dead than before."  He remarked, heading over to the kitchen.  She stared at him as he turned his back to her and opened a cabinet.  "Coffee?  Or water?  You should probably drink some kind of fluids.  I've got some chili, too, if you're hungry."  

She blinked at the flurry of unfamiliar words.  "...Water."  She knew that one, and her throat was indeed parched.  He still had his back to her, which confused and irritated her.  Did he not see her as a threat?  He should.  

"It's from the well nearby, so it tastes a little off."  He said, pouring some of the water from a pitcher in the cold box into a strange cup with a handle on the side.  "But it's safe, don't worry."  He offered her the cup, his smile warm in the candlelight.  

She accepted it, fumbling for a moment to wrap her hands around the glass with the handle in the way.  What a peculiar vessel.  She brought the cup to her lips and sniffed at the water.  There was a faint metallic scent, but nothing dangerous, so she took a sip.  Then another, much longer, and she had drained the glass in a matter of ticks.  

His eyes widened and he held up the pitcher to refill her cup.  While she drank this one more slowly, he still set the pitcher on the table nearby.  

"So."  He sat down on the low table himself, facing her, and rested his elbows on his knees.  "You're an alien."

She frowned.  "I can tell your planet is a backwater one, if you still use that kind of language.  Have you no contact with other planets?"

"None that are scientifically valid."  He said.  "Most of us that believe in life outside of Earth are dismissed as crazy."

She arched an eyebrow.  "'Us'?"

He smiled.  "I always thought there might be something else out there."

She snorted.  "There's a lot, actually."  

"Really now," he hummed.  "Tell me more?"

"I'm not here on a scholarly or diplomatic mission."  Krolia snapped.  "I'm here on important business, so if you'll excuse me—"

"The desert is alive with vicious predators at night."  He warned.  "Coyotes, cougars, Gila monsters, snakes, scorpions... And water is scarce.  You're safer here, at least until you recover."  

She froze, mind raking over her options.  She was far from her ship – her ruined ship with its in-operable defenses – and had only her blade, not even her gun, on an unfamiliar planet with a hostile environment.  Worse, she had no idea what those 'vicious predators' were he had mentioned; anything bigger than a klanmüirl and she might have trouble with it on her own, in her current state.  The only word she could pick out of the lot was 'monster', and although she didn't know the word before it, she didn't want to run into anything fearsome enough to be called a 'monster' while she was injured. Perhaps... perhaps it was wiser to wait until she was more recovered.  She bit back a growl and rested against the back of the couch once more.  

He smiled.  "Can you tell me your name?"  He asked.

She eyed him suspiciously.  "You first."

"Ken."  

She blinked, surprised that he had complied so easily.  "Ken."  She repeated, mouth uncertain around the strange-sounding name.  So short and clipped... were all Earth names like that?

"And you are?"  

She... supposed she owed him that much.  "Krolia."

"Krolia."  He nodded, lips wrapping around the syllables with a reverence she hadn't shown his name.  "That's a beautiful name."  

She had to wonder if he was being genuine, given the difference in their cultures.  "You said this place... is it not called Terra?"  

"We call it Earth."  He explained, leaning back on his hands.  "And the people on it, like me, we call ourselves humans."

"Humans."  She would have to include these corrections in her report.  Stars damn Kolivan for giving her faulty information.  

"What about you?"  He asked.  "What do you call yourselves, if not aliens?"

She hesitated, wondering how much she could trust him.  But, then again, if she failed in her mission, he would learn the name of the empire soon enough.  "Galra."  

He nodded as if he understood.  "Alright, then, Krolia of the planet Galra—"

She snorted in amusement.  "Galra are a  _people_ , not a place."  Perhaps this was how he felt when she called him a Terran.  "And just Krolia is fine."

"See?  We both make mistakes."  He shrugged, taking it in stride rather than embarrassment.  "Anyway, I moved your spaceship into a cave nearby.  Don't want the wrong people coming across it and getting you into trouble.  Not everyone around here is as willing to accept the idea of aliens as me."  

"You moved it?"  She cocked her head.  He was broad-shoulder for his height, but he was just so... small.  A full head shorter than her, at least, maybe a bit more.  Were all humans this size?  Perhaps he was average, or even tall for his kind.  She had no frame of reference.

"Yeah, while you were out, I built a trailer out of some scrap metal and spare motorcycle tires."  He jerked a thumb in the direction of the door.  "Hitched it up to my bike and loaded your spaceship onto it, then drove it to one of the caves around these parts.  Took me the better part of a day."  

Krolia rubbed her thumb along the porcelain of the cup in her hands, her claw clinking quietly against it.  "Thank you, for hiding it."  She said quietly.  "If it remains undiscovered, I can begin repairing it as soon as I am healed."

"You're gonna have a hard time with that," he chuckled.  "It's pretty totaled."  

Total...-d?  Krolia wondered if her translator chip had been damaged in the crash or if this planet's language software badly needed an update.  Probably the later, considering the isolation.  "Regardless, I can repair anything."  She would have to.  She wasn't about to spend the rest of her life on this backwater planet, not when she had a war to fight.    

"You do seem like the kind of woman who can take on anything."  He smiled warmly.  She narrowed her eyes; what was that supposed to mean?  He chuckled and got to his feet.  "Well, I'm hungry, and I bet you are too.  Dinner?  It'll be nice to cook for two, for a change."  

She watched him as he walked to the kitchen.  Again, he turned his back to her with no hesitation.  Strange.  "...Fine, dinner."  She could stay for one night, she supposed.  But no more than that.  

"So, I couldn't help but notice, when I was patching you up," Ken went on as he pulled a strange-looking, metal vessel with a straight handle out of a cabinet.  "Not all that blood that's on you is your own, is it?"  He twisted a knob, and blue flames flickered to life.  He set the pot-thing on top of the grate over the flame.  This process looked much more complex than the readily-prepared nutrient goo she was used to.  

Krolia looked down and noticed she was still drenched in now-dried blood and a few feathers.  "No.  Some Terran— Earth creature, broke my windshield."  She frowned.  "It had wings, and a long neck.  I didn't get too good of a look at it, though, before it shattered my windshield and its body flew into my engine."  

"Poor bird."  Ken said mildly.  Krolia hadn't the faintest idea what a 'bird' was, but she had to guess it was the species of the creature.  Ken went on.  "I've got a shower, if you want to clean off."  He pointed towards a door.  "Let me know if you need help figuring out the shower.  It's a little tricky."

Krolia narrowed her eyes.  She was a highly-trained spy who could hack Imperial databases in mere minutes.  "I think I can handle it."  She said icily.  He just shrugged with a small smile.  She ignored him and got to her feet, muscles a little stiff with disuse.  

Inside the small room he had pointed to, she closed the door and engaged the lock, eyeing the primitive deadbolt doubtfully.  So old-fashioned and... mechanical.  Her people had been using Galra tech for so long, this was startlingly primitive.  

There was a sink beside the door with a small, old mirror hanging over it, a toilet, and then a small, square tub with a showerhead mounted above it.  The knobs and levers were unfamiliar to her, but she had worked with worse before.  Twisting the numbered knob yielded a click but nothing else.  She flicked the lever.  Still nothing.  She growled in frustration and was about to just wash herself with a cloth from the sink basin when Ken's voice called through the door.  "Push down on the knob to start the propane and turn it to the 2, hold it for five to ten seconds, turn it back to the 1, then turn it to the 3 to get water.  Lever up to get warm water, down to get hot."  

"This makes no  _sense_..." Krolia muttered darkly as she followed his instructions.  Two and then one and then three... what was that?  Even more infuriating, it actually worked; the metal contraption hummed as a blue flame flickered inside the small window set into the base.

"It's old, and propane-heated."  Ken explained.  "Wait, have you taken your clothes off yet?"  

Krolia stiffened, hand already on her zipper.  "...Why."  It came out more as a hard demand than a question.  

A soft knock came from the door, and his voice sounded closer.  "Change of clothes?  For after."  

She debated the pros and cons for a moment before cautiously opening the door.  He was standing there with a pile of folded cloth in his hands and a small smile.  She took them when he held them out, then he tipped his head slightly and walked back to the kitchenette, leaving Krolia holding a pile of clothes that were most certainly his, completely confused by the meaning of that gesture.  To avoid thinking about it too much, she closed and locked the door once more before setting the clean clothes in a pile on the corner of the sink (so  _short_ , compared to Galra ones... it came up to mid-thigh on her) and peeled off her suit, wincing as the blood-stained fabric pulled at her fur and aggravated the plethora of bruises littering her body.  The sink was much easier to figure out, but she had to stoop over as she filled it with hot water and suds from the bar of soap placed beside the faucet before dropping her suit in to soak.  

Krolia turned the knob on the shower to the 3 and water burst out of the showerhead, quickly warming up.  Picking up the showerhead, she moved it around to wash herself while keeping the bandages taped to her side relatively dry, scrubbing at the rest of her short, violet fur and cleaning under her claws.  She fumbled with the knob for a moment, but turning the thing off was much simpler than turning it on; just twisting it all the way to the right again made the water stop and the hum of the propane tank grow quiet.  Feeling clean and much more refreshed, Krolia considered the single towel on the rack for a moment before ultimately deciding that smelling like this strange human was better than her soaked fur getting her sick and she reached for it, drying her hair and body and dabbing carefully around her covered wound.  

She unfolded the clothes, eyeing them critically.  A plain, light brown shirt made of some soft material, and dark, loose, cropped sleeping pants that she was willing to bet came to about the human's calf.  She would be lucky if they covered her knees.  Still, they were better than no clothes, or her currently-soaking and filthy armor suit, so she pulled them on.  She was right about the pants, and the shirt was both too big and too small; it hung loosely on her whipcord-thin form, but was nearly short enough to show her long waist.  Humans with their strange proportions, she sighed to herself as she set to washing her suit.  She drained the red water and pink suds down the sink and quickly rinsed the suit before holding it up to inspect the rip in the side.  She should be able to repair that on her own, once it was dry, she thought.  Leaving the suit draped over the showerhead and dripping into the tub, she turned off the light and left the bathroom.  

A sweet, earthy smell assaulted her nose the moment she stepped out of the bathroom, strongest in the kitchenette where Ken was stirring a pot of something reddish-brown over his little blue flame.  "Feeling better?"  He asked.

"A bit."  She admitted.  But she was also feeling light-headed.  She lowered herself to the couch seat and rummaged through her pack until she found the yellow bottle of blood-cell revitalizers, then popped two into her mouth and swallowed them.  Ken poured some of the red-brown substance into two bowls – ah, so other planets used similar nutrient goo as the Galra? -- and carried them over to the cinderblock-and-board table in front of the couch.  He handed her one of the bowls with a smile and saying something that her translator did not know what to do with; bone... apple... tea?  Was that the name of the dish?

"Do they have chili in outer space?"  Ken asked, taking a seat on the low table.  

"Space is below freezing, so yes, some might classify it as 'chilly'."  Krolia lifted a spoonful of the food substance and inspected it.  It was steaming.  Nutrient goo was eaten cool or at room temperature.  

Ken chuckled.  "No, chili.  That's what this food is called."  

Oh.  She was glad for the dim light in the shack, and for her hair covering her ears somewhat as they burned.  "We have... something a bit like it.  Not as flavorful, though."  It truly was delicious.  Earthy and a little spicy, and warm in a way that wasn't just from the temperature.  

Ken hummed thoughtfully, and a quiet fell over the two of them while they ate.  Krolia was indeed famished, having had nothing to eat but her rations a quintant before she crashed on Earth, and she quickly finished off her bowl.  Ken got up and left his own half-finished bowl on the table as he brought the pot over and gave her the rest of what was left.  When the two of them were finished, Ken collected the dishes and washed them in the sink, telling her to stay resting on the couch.  For a few moments, there was silence other than the slosh of water and the squeak of the faucet as he turned it on and off to conserve water.  

"You're lucky you landed this far out in the desert."  Ken spoke up from his place at the sink.  Krolia chose not to mention that it wasn't luck, it was calculated.  She was looking for something.  Ken went on.  "Most humans, if they saw an alien from outer space... it would cause a panic, and could be dangerous for you."  

Krolia understood the implication; it would be risky for her to leave this place and go where she might be seen by other humans.  "What makes you different from other humans, then?"  She asked.  

He chuckled.  "I'm just a crazy hermit who lives in his research shack in the desert, tuning radios in search of alien chatter."  Well, Krolia didn't know about that.  He didn't seem 'crazy', per se.  "Seems you ended up being found by the same human that was looking for you.  Like fate."  He smiled over his shoulder, eyes soft in the candlelight.  

Krolia didn't believe in 'fate', any more than she believed in luck.  She had come here for a mission, and he happened to be in the area.  It was a coincidence, a mere side effect of her calculations.  Nothing more.  

He dried his hands off on a small towel and left the dishes to dry on a wire rack.  "You should get some rest.  I've got a bed upstairs, but I don't know if you should be climbing the ladder in your condition.  Will you be alright on the couch?"  

She considered it, then nodded.  "Yes."  She had slept in damp caves, hanging in hammocks from cliffs, and in warships surrounded by hostile commanders who would rip her to pieces if they discovered where her true loyalties lay.  She could make do with a too-short couch.  

He smiled and inclined his head once more.  "Then, goodnight, Krolia."  

She nodded brusquely and busied herself with laying the blanket over her legs while he climbed up the ladder into the attic-like upstairs.  Curling her fingers around her knife, she closed her eyes and told herself she would only be here for one night.  That was it.  Just one night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (BONUS SCENE) 
> 
> _Krolia, pointing her knife at a foot-long, orange and black Gila monster just chillin' in the sand, eyeing it incredulously:_ "Is this... is this the most fearsome monster your planet has to offer? That's it??"  
>  _Ken, holding back laughter:_ "Hey, you haven't been bitten by it. The name is deserved, trust me." 
> 
> Also, about the weird shower, IDK if all propane-heated showers are fucked up by design or if it's just mine, but it confuses literally everyone who stays with me. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ Thought it seemed like something you'd find in a shack in the middle of nowhere.


	2. The Search

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was gonna wait but I got excited :3 Spelunking dates and a kitty cat! (...in a way)

One night turned into two, then three, then four.  Her wound was healing frustratingly slowly; it was a full five days before she could move without pain, but Ken told her even that was far faster than a human could heal, given the size of her wound.  Once she was healed enough to climb the ladder he offered the bed in the small, cramped upstairs to her and said he could take the couch.  Tired of the too-short couch, she accepted, and it wasn't until she was staring up at the ceiling and surrounded by blankets and a pillow that smelled so strongly of him that she realized she might have made a tactical error.  

She was growing fond of this human, between his warm smile, his willingness to help her repair her ship, the ease with which he piloted his motorcycle through the desert, and his genuine interest in where she had come from.  She couldn't tell him about the Blade or her mission, of course, but she told him some things about the might and danger of the Galra Empire.  It was only fitting to warn him, since Zarkon's territory was expanding ever closer to this planet.  The information would benefit him, after all.  And... she saw no harm in telling him a few things about her own planet, as well.  Not too much, but... a few things about when she grew up couldn't hurt.  It wasn't like it was possible to find it, anymore.  And anyway, he was just so enamored by the stories...  And it was oddly nice to talk to someone while the two of them worked on the ship.  It had been a long time since she had indulged in casual conversation.  A very long time.  It felt good to start working on her ship again, feeling the machine under her hands, but it was unexpectedly nice to have someone to talk to while she worked, someone who was eager to help her.  And, she reasoned, having two sets of hands did help speed the repairing process along.

"These caves are quite large," Krolia remarked, wiping sweat from her brow as she looked around the cave her ship was hidden in.  Stalactites hung from the vaulted ceiling, far enough above her head that it made the gears in her head turn.  "Are there more of them, around here?"

"Why?  Sick of this one?"  Ken asked from under her ship.  She ignored the fumbling of her translator as it changed it to 'ill', as she had already learned 'sick of' meant 'tired of', from her past conversations with him.  

"No, and I'll not move this ship until it's ready to fly."  She turned back to the mess of metal in front of her, sticking a wrench under her arm as she reached inside to access the wire panel underneath.  "I'm just wondering if there are other caves that are this large.  Larger enough to hide something else in."  

"There are caves all over this area, some of them can get pretty big."  Ken said, words punctuated by a metallic  _thunk_  and a soft curse.  "What are you thinking of hiding?"

"I'm not."  Krolia said.  She frowned at the machinery in front of her.  "Pliers?"  She held out a hand.  

He poked his head out from under the ship.  "How big are these pliers?"  He looked aghast.

She exhaled through her nose and rolled her eyes.  "No, are you done with the pliers?  I need them."  

"Oh, sure."  He handed them up to her before rolling back under the ship.  She set to work on straightening out the panel casing.  Quiet settled in the cave, but never silence; there was always the sound of them repairing the ship.  Ken cleared his throat.  "What do you think is hidden in one of these caves?"

She froze.  Stars damn him.  He was frustratingly bright.  But... he also knew the area like the back of his hand.  Perhaps he could help her.   She chose her words carefully.  "Something large, and mechanical.  Far larger than this ship."  

"Hm."  Ken paused to crank something into place below the hull.  "Well, I've heard there are subterranean tunnels below a lot of these caves.  I haven't gone looking in any of them.  They're dark and wet."

She paused.  "Wet?"

"Yeah, there's water down there."  He said.  "Groundwater, like the well I have dug near my shack.  The tunnels go all the way down to the water table, from what I've heard.  Must be pretty far down, in the desert.  But like I said, I've never been down there.  I'm more interested in space than below the surface of the Earth."

"But you know where they're located, these caves?"  She asked.  

"I could do some research.  We could probably find them."  He said.  

"Yes.  Let's do that."  She nodded, already thinking about her report to Kolivan.

He wheeled himself out and flashed a grin up at her.  "Is that a date?"  He asked.

She paused, translator chip flicking over the options.  A small fruit?  A specific day?  An outing?  Probably that.  "Yes.  A date."  

His grin brightened at her words and he rolled himself back under the ship.  She turned back to her work and reached up to tap the small bump just behind her ear where the translator chip was implanted, wiggling it to shift through the options.  Oh.  An outing with connotations of a courtship ritual.  Interesting.  

...Well, she wasn't entirely opposed to that, if she was being perfectly honest.

~~~~~~~

"Okay, flashlights, batteries, first aid kit, plenty of water, gloves, boots, reflective tape, maps, headlamp, helmet..." Ken paused, considering the two hard helmets.  He looked up at Krolia, who was frowning at the geological survey map Ken had acquired from a place called a 'library' in a nearby town.  "Is this going to fit your head?"  He asked.  

Moments later, they realized it would not, as it perched awkwardly on the crown of her head.  Ken looked worried, but Krolia just shrugged and activated her mask.  She had repaired her suit using the nanofiber fusing tool in her pack.  "This will protect me sufficiently."  She told him.

His eyes widened, and she wondered if the glowing mask looked fearsome to him.  "Oh.  Alright."  He worked the lamp off the helmet in his hands.  "Headlamp?"  

"My visor automatically adjusts to the environment's light levels, even pure darkness." She explained.  "And I can see better in the dark than you can."  She tried to put that as delicately as possible.  

He sighed and shook his head fondly as he shoved the extra headlamp in his pack anyway.  "Alright, then, let's go."

They drove on his motorcycle to the cliffs and rock formations far out in the desert, even further than the shack was located.  The first cave they came across was small and unimpressive, hardly a few meters deep and nothing but sand, rocks, and some graffiti sprayed on the wall in fluorescent green.  The next, further away, looked about the same.  Some were a bit deeper, but few had more in them than a few snakes and some bones.  After more than half a day of searching, though, they finally found a deep cave that smelled faintly of water.  

"Do you hear that?"  Ken asked, looking around.  

Krolia nodded.  Of course she could hear it; her ears were far sharper than his.  An infrequent, yet steady  _drip, drip, drip_  coming from somewhere in the depths of the cave.  She had to stoop low to avoid hitting her head on the rocks, and even Ken had to duck as he followed her.  They rounded a corner and kept moving deeper into the cave system.  

Ken was busy looking up at what looked like strange carvings etched into the walls when Krolia's hand snapped out and grabbed his arm to stop him.  He turned to her, surprised, then followed her gaze down to a salamander that scurried out from where he had been about to place his foot.  The little creature scuttled off down the path, disappearing behind a stalactite.  

"My mission specs state that life on this planet is not to be harmed."  Krolia told him, releasing his arm.  She kept walking.  

"Krolia, you hit a bird with your spaceship when you entered the troposphere."  Ken pointed out, a hint of laughter in his soft drawl.  

She stopped walking suddenly.  Turned around and fixed a glare on him.  It did not kill the smirk on his lips.  She marched back over to him and smacked his headlamp switch, plunging them into darkness, then turned away and used her mask's night-vision to keep going down the tunnel.  His soft laughter echoed around the cave like an amused ghost for a few moments before he switched his headlamp back on and followed her, still chuckling.

When she finally started talking to Ken again after a few minutes of brooding (his words, not hers), he pointed out that salamanders were semi-aquatic creatures, so there must be some water nearby.  Sure enough, they carefully made their way down a steep, rocky incline into a cavern where they could hear water trickling and dripping.  Just as he told her to watch her footing, Ken slipped on the slick rocks, and Krolia grabbed him but lost her balance and fell as well.  She pulled him close reflexively, knowing he had no armor to protect him other than that silly helmet, and they rolled down the rocks until splashing into a shallow pool of freezing water just a few inches deep, the sounds echoing eerily in the cave.  Ken's headlamp had turned off in the fall, so they were in complete darkness. With her mask's visor, Krolia could see his eyes flicking around, desperate to grab onto any visual cue, but he didn't look scared.  

When the rocks and drips settled around them into silence once more, he swallowed and sat up underneath her.  "Well.  That's one way to get to the bottom."  

"Indeed."  She sat back to let him up and located the button on his headlamp for him, and it clicked but didn't turn on.  

He cursed softly.  "Battery must've been damaged.  I have another in my pack."  

"Let's get out of the water first."  Krolia told him.  She took his hands and guided him to the edge of the underground pool, easily shifting his weight to keep him from slipping on the rocks.  Once on dry land – well, less wet rock– she sat him down so he wouldn't fall and hurt himself, pulled off his pack, and dug through the top pocket until she located the batteries.  He managed to get the small battery box on top of his helmet open and remove the cracked battery with only his sense of touch, and she pressed the new ones into his hand for him to replace them.  The headlamp flickered on once more and he breathed a sigh of relief as he closed up the box. 

Ken placed the helmet back on his head and looked around.  "Wow... this place is huge..."  He paused, training his lamp on some carvings etched into the stone, more detailed than the ones closer to the surface.  Krolia, meanwhile, had drawn her blade and was looking around the cavern.  Something was here.  Something big, with an old, otherworldly aura.  It didn't seem dangerous, but...

"Don't touch that."  She told Ken, just as his fingertips made contact with one of the carvings.  Neither of them moved for a moment, then he just looked at her questioningly.  She listened carefully, but nothing happened, and the carvings remained as they were.  She frowned, eyes narrowing at the carvings as she studied them, and dissolved her mask to get a closer look at the depth and texture of them.  They depicted creatures, some simple and others more complex, some even showing what looked like machinery.  All of them were of lions.      

"Krolia?"  Ken's voice came out barely above a whisper.  He was looking somewhere over her shoulder, toward the back of the cavern.  "What were you sent to Earth to look for?"  

She turned and followed his gaze, catching sight of a glint of metal between two stalactites.  She set off, heart pounding, and rounded the corner to find an enormous robot sitting in the depths of the cavern like a gigantic statue of a regal cat.  When Ken caught up with her and shone his lamp on it, she could see that the armor was a blue color that matched the sky far, far above them, beyond the miles of caves.  Blue as the sky it had come from, blue as the little blue planet it was hidden on.  

"That."  She breathed.  

She had heard stories about the beauty of Altean technology.  Their technology shared some roots with Galra tech, but the Galra striped everything down to the bare minimum and coated everything in flat, dark colors to match the imperial seal.  Simplicity.  Efficiency.  The greatest amount of damage to enemies in the smallest amount of effort.  Everything to further the Galra Empire, and only recently, by her brothers and sisters, were things created with the explicit purpose of taking down that very same empire.  The Alteans, though, had crafted such a stunning and majestic vessel of combat, that if she could believe the rumors, even had a  _consciousness_  and personality.  And they created all that nearly ten thousand years ago, with the mysterious arts known as alchemy that had eluded Galra scholars in the past, a blend of science and something else, something magic.  It was amazing to witness such a creation with her own eyes and feel its powerful aura, even from this distance.

Beside her, Ken let out a low whistle.  "Yeah, this  _definitely_ isn't on the geological survey or park ranger map."  

His words jolted her back to the present and the danger they faced.  "Ken."  She turned to him and took him by the shoulders, expression grave.  "You can tell no one about this.  Nothing about this place, or that Lion, or what you've seen.  Not a word to a single soul, understood?"

"Yeah."  He looked at her, confusion furrowing his brow.  "But why—"

"Swear it to me."  She cut him off.  "Swear you will tell no one about this place, or about me or my mission."  She took out her knife and sliced a thin cut across her palm, then held it out to him, blood welling to the surface.  "Swear by your blood, the life in your veins, that you won't breathe a word about this to anyone."  

He looked down at her hand for several long minutes.  Water dripped into the pools all around them, splattering quietly against the rocks.  Without a word, he took the knife from her and pressed it to his palm, slicing a small cut into his own hand.  He grasped her hand, eyes flicking up to meet hers.  "I swear.  I won't tell anyone about this, ever.  Your secrets are safe with me."  He took a deep breath, squeezing her hand slightly.  "I want to protect you, Krolia.  I love you."  

Her heart beat faster against her ribs, threatening to burst out and tumble out of her chest like her ship had fallen to the Earth.  To him.  She smiled and squeezed her hand around his, shifting their grip to slot their fingers together.  "I love you, too."

His smile eased the worried lines in his face, and he reached up with his other hand to guide her head lower, rising up on his toes to kiss her.  His lips were soft, if a little chapped, and he smelled faintly of cave water and sweat from their hiking.  

She pulled back from the kiss almost reluctantly, cupping his cheek.  "We should leave this place."  

"Already?"  Ken looked around, curious.  

"The Lion will not awaken for us, nor would I want it to."  Krolia said.  "We know that it is here, undisturbed and undiscovered by Zarkon.  That is all we need to know."  

"Wait, that... that thing is alive?"  He dropped his voice to a whisper, casting a look at the towering machine.  

"In a way."  Krolia said thoughtfully.  "It has its own quintessence, the life force all living creatures have.  But it cannot move without a paladin to guide it, and it has chosen neither of us."

"How can you tell?"  Ken asked, pausing to look back at the machine.  

"You touched the carvings and they did not respond."  Krolia replied.  "And..." She scooped up a small rock and threw it toward the Lion.  It bounced once against the ground with a sharp  _clack_ , then was stopped by an invisible force field on its second bounce.  Glowing blue lines branched out from the point the pebble struck, growing wider and larger until they encompassed the entire Lion in a particle barrier that bathed the cavern in an eerie blue light.  Ken gasped beside her at the sight.  She squeezed his hand, tugging him along.  "Now that we have located the Blue Lion, as soon as a suitable paladin can be found, I will be able to guide them here.  Until then, its presence must remain a secret."  

"How will you know?"  Ken asked, and they had to let go of each other's hands to climb back up the rocks.  "How do you know who will be a suitable... paladin?"

Krolia sighed.  "Truthfully, I do not know.  It is one of our greatest struggles, finding individuals to fill the void left by the paladins of old.  Only one survived, and he built his empire on the graves of his former fellow paladins."

"Zarkon?"  He asked, accepting her hand as she helped pull him up a particularly difficult ledge.  "Or is there another evil space dictator out there?"  

So he did listen to her.  Of course he did.  "Undoubtedly there are others that follow in his example, but none are so ruthless as he."  She nodded, gritting her teeth as she pushed back memories of bloodshed, her people slaughtered, her planet ripped apart for quintessence and then left to rot like a mere husk of a corpse surrounded by dying stars that shared the same fate.  She hadn't seen such vivid memories since her Trials, usually she kept them secured under wraps, under the thick callus she had been forced to form around her heart from all the bloodshed and pain she had been through and witnessed...  

"Hey," Ken's voice shook her out of her thoughts, and the screaming and explosions and fire of her memories faded to the cool quietness of the cave.  He squeezed her shoulder, eyes soft and smile understanding, yet tinged with sadness.  She wondered if he had known loss as well.  "It's going to be okay."  

She doubted it would.  This war had been going on for far, far too long for her to have any hope of seeing the end of it.  Not in her lifetime, surely.  It didn't seem possible.  She would fight as long as she could, die an early and hopefully noble death, and the universe would go on without her.  It was a bleak outlook, but she couldn't imagine anything else.  But, then again, she had never imagined she would fall in love, either.  Maybe the impossible could be possible after all.

She returned his smile with one of her own, that she hoped wasn't too sad.  "Come, we ought to get back to the surface before nightfall.  And your clothes are soaked; you should get out of them as soon as you can."  

"For survival purposes?"  Ken asked, the corner of his mouth lifting wryly.  

Krolia looked back at him and flashed him a grin.  "I can think of a few other reasons as well."  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Little Keith: "Dad, what was your and Mom's wedding like?"  
> Ken: "It wasn't so much a wedding as it was a blood pact, actually..."  
> Keith: (O.O;;  
>  ~~I mean hey, blood pacts can be romantic and eventually lead to marriage, just look at Du Zifeng and Pi Yanuo...~~ XD 
> 
> Yes the rating will go up next chapter, to E, but only that chapter. The rest will be T-chapters at most.


	3. A Cosmic Sort of Love

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *dun dun DUNNN* the rating has gone up, take note. But only for this chapter, then things will be back to T at the most.
> 
> Chapter title is a reference to the song Cosmic Love by Florence + the machine, which I think fits them kinda well. It's also where I got the fic title (though that line is much more vague). ~~it's also where I got the title for my sheith big bang fic, WHY DOES IT FIT BOTH COUPLES SO WELL?~~

The sun was beginning to set by the time they made it to the mouth of the cave, bathing the open sky in shades of pink and orange that looked so different than the world below where they had just come from.  Back on Ken's motorcycle, Krolia took advantage of her place behind him to wrap her arms around his middle and hold him close, hoping to share some of her body heat with him (and if she took the opportunity to admire the firm muscles under his wet clothes, well... she never claimed to be a saint).  The desert cooled off rapidly in the absence of the sun, and with the wind whipping past them as they sped through the desert, Ken was shivering by the time they made it back to his shack.  He cut the engine and dismounted, the two of them leaving wet patches on the leather seat, and he fumbled with the sand tarp he usually covered the bike with for a few moments before Krolia took it from him.  "I'll take care of it.  You go inside."  She told him.  His skin really was freezing under her hands.  

"Good idea."  He nodded and tucked his cold fingers under his armpits.  "I need a hot shower, otherwise you're going to have nothing to work with."  

She regarded the back of his head with a bemused look – whatever did he mean by that? – as she tied the tarp around the bike like she had seen him do, while he disappeared into the shack.  Once she was certain no sand would be able to get in and damage the engine, she went inside as well.  She could hear the shower running in the bathroom, but she only changed out of her suit and into the soft sleeping clothes she had borrowed from him.  The Marmora armor was waterproof, so she was still dry even after their tumble into the underground lake.  She debated whether it was even worth it to put on clothes at all, but she didn't know how long he would be in there or if she had been misreading the situation (she really hoped she hadn't, but she was nothing if not prepared with at least two backup plans at all times.  Habit from work.)

To pass the time, Krolia flopped down on the couch, plugged the surveillance chip from her mask into her communicator, and starting grabbing stills from the video feed to send in her report.  She promptly deleted any footage of Ken and was glad she hadn't recorded any audio.  That conversation was for her alone.  

Krolia tapped a relatively-clear image of one of the carvings to save it to her communicator, mind only half-focused on the task.  She didn't think it pertinent to the mission to mention Ken in her report. Kolivan did not need to know the details of her personal life, after all, no matter how long they had known each other or what they had done in the past.  Besides, she had come here under orders to not engage with any local life-forms.  If Kolivan found out she had been having repeated, sustained contact with one – she was living in his  _house_ , dining with him, exploring caves together, and for the past few days at least, sleeping in the same bed as him – he might declare the mission compromised and order her back to the base, or worse, send an extraction team.  She could not imagine the embarrassment such a fuss would cause, plus it could put them in danger; someone might notice an alien ship coming to Earth and raise the alarm, and the panic generated might cause Earth scientists to go poking around beyond the borders of their planet in a way that would draw Zarkon's attention.  And, given the now-confirmed location of the Blue Lion, that was something they absolutely could not risk.  No, it was much safer to stick to the Blade way, and only give the most vital details in the report.  What knowledge they didn't know to even seek wouldn't harm them.  Not to mention, she was still complying with her orders, after all; locate the Blue Lion, and protect the planet housing it.  

The fact that she now also sought to protect one specific human on said planet did not detract her from that goal, she told herself.

The bathroom door opened with a quiet click and she turned off her communicator as she looked up.  Ken was wearing a pair of loose jeans and no shirt, rubbing a towel over his hair.  The lack of shirt wasn't unusual, for him – he only had so many, and she was wearing one of them – but it was the first time she let her eyes linger on his form (openly, that is.  She would deny at knife-point that she had snuck glances at him before).  He was a good deal shorter than her, yes, but broad-shouldered in a way she wasn't built to be, his muscles a bit less compact than her own.  And there certainly wasn't anything wrong with that, she thought as she watched him rummage through the drawer for a match to light the kerosene lamp on the table (oops, she hadn't noticed the dimness of the shack with her vision).  But oh, the light did make everything better, she realized as the glow of the wick highlighted the shadows and droplets of water clinging to his lightly-tanned skin.  Such a peculiar skin tone, she thought absently, but admittedly, she knew he must think the same of her, with her purple skin, yellow and violet eyes, and purple and magenta hair.

Beauty was relative, she realized as Ken looked over at her.  So long as she found him attractive and he found her attractive, they needed no further reason.  She herself had always found attraction to come after, not before, trust, and he most certainly had hers.  Judging by the soft smile and heady gaze he was giving her, he agreed.  

"It's getting pretty late."  He said quietly as she stood up.  "Should we go to bed?"  

It was hardly after sundown.  The stars weren't even visible yet in the indigo-purple sky.  But if he wanted to play that card, she would follow suit.  Perhaps that was typical for humans.  "I think we should."  She replied, just as quiet.  She wasn't normally quiet, but something about the stillness of the shack tonight made unusual hesitation mingle with her excitement.

A beat of silence passed as he slid his hands around her waist, and she wound her arms around the back of his broad shoulders.  

"Krolia..." Ken sighed.  "I don't want to make assumptions, because we come from different planets and cultures, so I'll ask outright.  What do you want to do, tonight?"

She tilted his head up and pressed a lingering kiss to his lips.  When he kissed her back, she slid a hand down the front of his chest, claws carefully running tantalizingly light over his candlelit-bathed skin.  "The same as you, I think."  Her hand came to rest on the button of his jeans, thumb travelling just a touch lower to stroke over the denim.  "Does that answer your question?"  She slid her lips along the stubble-rough line of his jaw and pressed a kiss just underneath his ear – strangely shaped, she still thought, and weirdly round, but also... kind of cute.  

Ken swallowed, and she could feel the movement from where her lips were pressed to his throat.  "Upstairs."  He tapped her hips, not pushing or tugging, just a request.  Perhaps human culture required a bed for mating (pity, she would like to bend him over that motorcycle one day).  Or perhaps she needed to stop thinking in terms of humans and Glara, but rather as Ken and Krolia; two different stars built from the same cosmic dust, that came together to create a constellation all their own.  

She climbed up the ladder ahead of him, then knelt on the wooden floor and leaned down to help pull him up (not that he needed it, but she craved even a little more contact).  Neither could stand up fully with the low eaves of the attic bedroom, so their move to the bed was quick and she was laying back while tugging him on top of her to kiss him more fully.  His hands found her hips again as their tongues met, this time his fingers seeking out the skin under her – his – t-shirt.  She slid her hands down his chest, around his waist, up his back, admiring his firm muscles and soft skin, and it seemed to give him the courage to push her shirt up further.  She broke the kiss to pull the shirt off over her head, and he sat back on his knees between her legs to drink in the sight in front of him, eyes wide and expression awed.  "You're gorgeous..."  Ken breathed, gaze traveling up her body to her face once more.  

"You're not so bad yourself."  She smiled.

He chuckled and leaned down to kiss her again, cupping her face in his hands.  His thumbs stroked over the markings on her cheeks, then his fingers travelled lower, tracing the markings around to the back of her neck, following then down the length of her back until they curved around to her front, fingers brushing just underneath her breasts before trailing down her stomach and to the waist of her pants.  

"Can I keep going?"  He asked, lips just above her navel from where he had been following the path of his fingers.  

"Please."  Krolia carefully pushed her hands through his soft hair, claws scratching just the barest hint against his scalp.  He hummed and hooked his thumbs into the waistband of the pants, and she lifted her hips to help him slide them down.  

"You're so beautiful, Krolia."  Ken murmured, sliding his lips further down and following the path of her markings over the front of her pelvis and to where the points ended at her sex.  He laid down on his front between her legs, hands cradling her thighs, and the first touch of his tongue to her sex made her gasp and tip her head back.  Stars, how long had it been, since anyone had touched her?  She'd had no time on base between her last mission and getting sent to Earth, so it had been quite a while... She didn't pay it much thought, though, too busy getting lost in the indulgent heat of his tongue as he licked and kissed her slit, fingers tracing small circles into her thighs as he held them open.  

He paused and pulled back for a moment.  "Uh... Krolia?"

She blinked her eyes open and looked down.  He looked... somewhat confused.  

Ken glanced up to meet her eyes.  "You're beautiful."  That wasn't quite the same tone he used before.  A hint of a question hidden under the statement.

"But?"  She prompted.

He looked down.  "What... what is that?"  

She looked down as well and saw his gaze was on her cock that had started to slip out of her sheath.  She glanced up to meet his eyes.  "That's a penis, Ken."  She said as plainly as possible.

His mouth fell open into a little 'o' of shock, and she wondered how much she would have to explain.  How did humans have sex, then?  

"And you have one... why?"  He asked.

"To have sex with?"  Krolia's brows pulled together.  "Do humans not have penetrative sex?"

"No, we do."  Ken said, a note of hesitation in his voice.

"Then I fail to see where the confusion is."  Krolia admitted.  If he already knew what it was, why was he surprised?  Was it the color?  The ridges or markings?  ...Were human ones shaped differently?  

"With humans, men have penises and women... don't."  Ken explained weakly.  

Krolia wrinkled her nose as she thought about that.  She rather liked her cock and couldn't imagine sex without it.  "Seems inefficient.  Galra of all genders have both sexual organs."  She looked at him and found him nodding slowly, as if digesting this information.  "Is that a problem?"  She asked.

"No, no, not a problem at all."  He tentatively wrapped his hand around it and stroked, and she hummed in approval.  "Just a bit of a surprise, but still as gorgeous as the rest of you."  He licked a long stripe up her cock, eyes flicking up to her face to check her reaction.  She sighed and arched her back into the warmth as he sealed his lips over the head of her cock and sucked, his fingers drifting lower to trace along her slit.  At her nod of encouragement, he slipped his middle finger in and a moment later he groaned around her cock.  

"Fuck, you feel amazing..." He breathed, working another finger inside along the first.  She rolled her hips into his hand, urging him to go deeper.  His mouth left her cock and he fisted it in his other hand while his lips and tongue followed her markings back up her body until he reached her breasts.  Krolia watched in quiet bemusement as he kissed her left breast before swirling his tongue around the nipple; nipples weren't uncommon to touch during sex, among Galra of any gender, but generally that was done with fingers and hands rather than tongues and... oh, but the light scrape of teeth did feel oddly good, she realized.  Usually the only Galra mouths that went there were one's cubs.  How peculiar.  

The attention he turned to the other one with his teeth and lips left her groaning and hooking a leg around his waist to push his fingers deeper inside, but it also made a small part of the back of her brain quietly realize that although she had never given the idea of having cubs much thought – how could she bring something into this cruel, war-torn universe? – and while the thought of having a cub suckle on her breast would have made her laugh with repulsion only a few decaphoebes ago, she found now that... maybe she wouldn't mind, so much.  The universe was still as war-torn as ever, and she was still a Galra with a military career, but something had changed.  And that something was now kissing his way up her throat, and she turned her head to nuzzle under his ear where his scent glands would have been.  Krolia had been with other Galra before, fellow Blades who were very dear to her and whom she trusted enough to blow off steam during stolen quiet moments at headquarters, but she had never been in love in a romantic sense.  She had never found someone she could see having cubs with.  She had never looked, truly.  She was a battle-hardened warrior too concerned with staying alive every day and her overall mission to do what she could to chip away at the Galra Empire.  But then something had changed.  Now, she was like a comet that had crossed paths with another celestial body and had been drawn in by its gravitational force, crash-landing not only into his desert but into his heart.  

Perhaps things like luck and fate really did exist, to a certain extent, she thought as she helped him shuck off his jeans.  Then his lips were on hers again and he was lining the tip of his cock up, and for once in her life, she let herself stop thinking and worrying and let herself just  _feel_.  She moaned and tugged him closer as he slid into her tight heat, huffed breaths and soft curses spilling from his lips when she intentionally squeezed around him.  

"Go on," Krolia told him, hooking her long legs around his waist and crossing her ankles behind his ass.  He nodded and pulled back a little before thrusting back in, and she let out a low moan at the sensation of being filled after so long of ignoring her own needs.  She rolled her hips up and encouraged him to go faster, until the bed was creaking underneath them and the two of them were lost in the building pleasure.  The rest of the universe fell away until it was only the two of them, two stars converging in a brilliant nebula that burst with color and light and life.  

He balanced his weight on his forearms to kiss her hungrily, hands slipping through her hair to the softer magenta strands underneath and cradling her the back of her head almost reverently as he thrust into her.  Pressed together like this, the friction of their bodies felt glorious on her cock, but his hand leaving the tangle of her hair to grip her length and thumb at the head really sent her over the edge and had her coming as she buried her face in the crook of his shoulder, only a slight twinge of regret that he had no proper scent glands to rub hers against.  No matter, they would still smell of each other, after this.  With a soft grunt, he thrust a few more times into her tightening heat before coming as well, filling her in a way that made a low, content purr build in her chest.  He pulled out soon after, with no knot to tie them together, but she found she couldn't complain when he flopped onto the bed next to her and drew her close so she could rest her head on his chest and listen to his rapid heart beating under his ribs, while she took pride in the knowledge that she did that to him.  

Ken took a few moments to catch his breath.  "So... you can purr?"  He asked, laying a hand over the center of her back where the vibrations were the strongest.  

"Yes," Krolia tossed a leg over his own and shifted to lay on his chest a bit better (though she was careful not to crush him, being larger than him).  "It helps facilitate bonding between mates."  She traced the tip of a claw between his pectorals.  His breaths were still heavy and she could feel his heart pounding, but nothing more.  "Can you not purr?"  

"No, humans can't."  Ken looked a bit put out by the admission, so she chose not to comment further.  He looked down at her.  "Are we mates, then?"

"If you want to be."  She had never really considered the idea of having a long-term mate before.  Some others in the Blade did, having found someone in the group with whom they felt a little less broken and alone in the universe.  She had never expected she would find someone like that on this little, isolated planet.  

"I think I do."  Ken murmured, idly stroking her arm.  

Krolia smiled against his skin.  "Good."  She let her fingers skim down his chiseled abdomen until she reached his cock.  Which felt... weirdly soft, and it was no longer standing up like it had been.  Oh well, perhaps it was a human thing.  She kissed and mouthed at the side of his throat.  "Ready for another round?"

To her surprise, he pushed her hand off his cock with a quiet hiss.  "Sorry, refractory period, still a little too sensitive."  At her questioning look, he went on.  "Uh, humans... when we have sex and finish, the body needs some time to recover.  A handful of minutes or so before we're ready to go again."  

"But your cock is still out?"  Krolia looked down at it, curious.  

Ken laughed softly.  "It stays out all the time.  Doesn't go inside like yours."  

"Hm, then we will wait until you are ready."  Krolia rolled them until she was leaning over him, noses close to touching.  His breath hitched as he looked up at her, and she found she liked that look on him, very much indeed.  Her lips curved up into a sly smile and she kissed along his jaw to prompt him to bare his throat for her.  "And then, I want to see how you come apart on  _my_ cock..." Krolia murmured against his pulse point, enjoying when it jumped under her lips.  

"That... I don't have a..." he paused, looking up at her as she looked down at him in turn.  His mouth closed, then opened, then closed again without a sound.  He cleared his throat, cheeks turning a light shade of red.  "...I could probably find some lube."  

She grinned and leaned down to kiss him again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Get a man who's willing to try butt stuff for his purple alien space wife ;D 
> 
> (Krolia is both demisexual and also very much a top, thanks for coming to my TED talk)


	4. Reason to Stay

Krolia woke sometime in the early hours of the morning when the sky was still gray and light pink, before the sun had risen.  The two of them were wrapped up together, his head tucked under her chin and their legs tangled together under the blankets that were pulled up to protect them from the chilly night air of the desert.  The blankets and pillows smelled overwhelmingly of the two of them, and it was almost as comfortable as a proper nest (though she could do without the springs in the mattress... Earth was a little behind on technology, in more ways than just weapons)

Loathe as she was to leave, she had work to do.  She slid out of bed as carefully as she could so as not to disturb her sleeping mate (yes, she decided, she did like that).  Shivering in the cold air, she debated dressing but ultimately slipped downstairs to retrieve her Blade suit instead.  It offered better thermal protection than the cotton t-shirt and would be more appropriate for what she needed to do.  

Once dressed, she chose the most nondescript wall of the shack to settle against, pressed down on the translator chip implanted under the skin behind her ear for ten ticks, and when it clicked to signal it was turned off, she turned on her communicator and held it up, resting her forearms on her drawn-up knees to keep the image steady.  

Kolivan's mask appeared on the screen as soon as her call went through security.  "Agent 1852.  I trust you are in a secure location to have left your mask off."  His voice was edged with reprimand.  

Krolia internally flinched at the dig that she had forgotten it, but kept her expression blank.  

"My location is secure."  She told him.  It was; even if Ken did wake, she had turned her translator chip off, so he would not be able to understand anything he might overhear.  "I have a status update on Operation Summer Storm."  

Kolivan let his mask dissolve, his large, fluffy ears twitching as they came out from under the confines of the mask.  "Continue."  

"I've located the Blue Lion in a cave here on Earth."  Krolia said.

"You were sent to Terra."  Kolivan frowned.  

"The intel regarding the planet's name was incorrect."  Krolia replied.  He would surely notify Ulaz.  

"How did you discover this?"  Kolivan asked, suspicious.

Krolia hesitated, having not planned for that question, but she was nothing if not good at thinking on her feet.  "I noticed a sign posted in the desert.  My translation software identified the proper name as Earth, E-A-R-T-H.  They use two separate letters for the 'th' sound."  

"Inefficient use of an alphabet."  Kolivan remarked, jotting that down.  "Are their scientific advances still the same as initially reported?"  

"Affirmative.  They're still millennia behind the Empire.  They would be crushed in hardly a tick."  And that thought sent a spike of worry twisting through her.  

Kolivan nodded.  "Agent 0813 has reported that the Empire's expansion has been steadily growing closer to that quadrant of the universe.  Even though most of the planets are uninhabited, they're still interested in stealing the quintessence of the planets themselves.  Agent 0813 is currently attempting to steer them elsewhere.  Now that you've confirmed the location of the Blue Lion, I will order him to double his efforts."

Krolia nodded.  Thace was persuasive, and she trusted him.  She hoped dearly that he would succeed and this planet would stay under Zarkon's radar.  "And what are your orders for me, Leader?"  The part she dreaded most.  She didn't want to leave, but she had a job to do, and the universe was bigger than just her own desires.  

"You will need to stay on the planet for a while longer, in case of an invasion."  Kolivan said.  "Zarkon cannot get his hands on that Lion, under any circumstances.  That he already has the Black bayard and the Red Lion is dangerous enough.  Protect the location and see to it that no one, not even Earth's scientists, discovers it."

"Yes, Leader."  She let out a barely-perceptible sigh of relief.  She wouldn't have to leave him.  Not yet.  

"Do you have sufficient supplies?  Is your ship repaired and functional?"  Kolivan asked.

"Affirmative."  Krolia nodded.  "I managed to salvage most of the emergency repair tools, including the molecular replicator to create a new windshield.  The other was completely demolished when the goose hit it."

Kolivan blinked.  "...The what?"

Krolia realized her mistake and quickly masked her panic.  "I managed to acquire a field guide of Earth animals dropped by some hiker at the edge of the desert during one of my recon missions.  I used the book to identify the creature that struck my ship and determined it was called a goose."  Only half-true; she had found the book on Ken's shelf and upon recognizing the creature as the one she hit, had asked him about it.

Kolivan frowned.  "You seem to be only narrowly evading the locals with some frequency."  He commented.  

"I've kept far more distance than the undercover agents that work right under the noses of Imperial commanders." Krolia replied sharply.  "This planet is not nearly as deserted as Agent 1216 indicated in his report."  

Kolivan's lip twitched up briefly in the barest of smirks as he jotted that down.  "I'll make sure he is notified of his mistake."  He nodded and looked up again.  "Anything else to report?"

"No, Leader."  But she still had a question, one that selfishly flew to her lips before she could stop it.  "How long will I be stationed here?"

"Unfortunately, I can't tell you that."  Kolivan looked regretful.  She wondered if he had misinterpreted her reaction to being told her orders to stay.  She wondered if she should just let him make his assumptions.  "It will depend on the success of the other agents to steer the expansion away from that quadrant.  But be on alert at all times.  Do not let your guard down."  His expression softened just slightly, the lines around his eyes easing just a bit.  "I know you're anxious to get back in the field, Krolia, but this mission is important.  That Lion falling into the wrong hands could mean a swift defeat for our forces and certain death of thousands of lives, ours included."  

"I understand, Leader."  And she was anxious when she thought about going back, but not in the way he probably thought.  "The mission is greater than the individual."  She was being selfish, she knew, but she wanted to stay here for even just a little longer.  Pretending she was doing it only as her duty made conflict swirl thick and heavy in her gut.  

"That is correct."  He paused, then frowned.  "Where are you, anyway?"  He squinted at the screen.

"An abandoned structure in the depths of the desert."  The lie rose to her lips easily, based on the stories Ken had told her of abandoned mining towns littering the desert.  "I did not think it prudent to stay in the same caves as the Lion, in case of accidental discovery."

"But you are being careful?"  He asked, and she had known him long enough to know that it was not only concern for the mission.

"Exceptionally."  She replied.  All in all, being discovered by one local over the two moon cycles she had been here was fairly good, if she disregarded the repeated – and very intimate – contact she had had with him. 

"Good." Kolivan looked away, his voice dropping.  He was silent for several long ticks, unusual for him.  These secure channels were difficult to maintain for extended periods of time.  He swallowed.  "We lost La'xerik three quintants ago.  He was discovered by the commander he was serving in his undercover work."  

Krolia's heart plummeted into her stomach and her body was doused in cold.  She had been quite close with La'xerik; they joined around the same time.  "I'm so sorry, Kolivan."  She knew he took each loss of his men personally, even through the façade he put on.  

"He died honorably.  Revealed nothing, despite the torture."  Kolivan's voice was hollow, and she closed her eyes to press back the emotion that clawed at her chest.  He didn't comment on her break in composure, just as she didn't comment on his.  If they didn't speak of it, they could pretend it never happened.

"Krolia."  His voice prompted her to open her eyes.  His expression was unreadable, just another mask he wore.  "Be careful.  Keep me updated."  

"Yes, Leader."  They couldn't contact each other too frequently, as it was too great of a risk – even a call this long, on a secure channel, was risky – but she would do what she could.  

A floorboard creaked above her and she heard a soft, sleepy-sounding "Kro...?"  

"What was that?"  Kolivan asked, instantly on-guard.  

"A bird, most likely; the desert is full of them and they tend to be active around this time."  Krolia said hurriedly.  "I'll go check it out, just to be certain."  

Kolivan nodded and cut the connection with no parting words, as was typical for him.  Krolia just barely managed to get the communicator turned off and her translator chip turned back on by the time Ken was coming down the ladder in a pair of jeans and an open, flannel shirt, his bare feet taking the rungs of the ladder one at a time.  "Were you talking down here?"  He asked.  

"My boss."  She replied, lifting the communicator.  "Status update."  She trailed off, guilt and grief mixing a strange and sickening cocktail in her stomach when she thought about her fallen comrade and the danger that was edging ever closer to this tiny, defenseless planet.  A planet that she was trying hard and failing harder not to think of as something like a home.

"Is everything okay?"  Ken asked, taking a seat beside her on the floor.  Krolia shrugged and ran her thumb over the corner of the device, using the pressure against her skin to ground her.  She couldn't tell him.  It would require too many explanations that would put him in danger, even more danger than her presence alone already was.  If it got out, if someone tortured him like they had La'xerik... 

"Krolia?"  Ken said softly.  "It's okay, if it's not.  It's okay to feel that way."  He placed a hand over hers, stopping the desperate fidgeting.  "It's okay to not be okay sometimes."  He told her.  

She took a deep, shuddering breath, and leaned into the arms that he wrapped around her.  They sat in silence for a long time, the only movement his hand rubbing soothingly against her arm.  She didn't tell him anything, but he didn't need her to.  He was there for her, and that was all that mattered.

~~~~~~~

Krolia tapped a pen against her lips thoughtfully as she glanced between her notebook full of calculations and the calendar Ken had hanging up on the wall near the kitchen.  This planet's daily units – tied to the rotation of their planet, its single moon, and its closest star –  were slightly different than the Intergalactic Standard Units used across the Galra Empire on ships that lacked celestial bodies with orbits to keep track of time.  Once she worked out how long a quintant was compared to a 'day', it was relatively simple to count the usual number of cycles, though she had to flip quite a few pages on the calendar – five pages, to be exact.  Which left her at... this specific week, in mid-to-late... (she glanced at the name of the 'month') …October.  A while off, still, and this was hardly an exact science, but it would be a good frame of reference.  She just hoped she would be able to stay here that long, she sighed as she let the pages fall back to the current month.  Her gaze settled on the innocuous white box with a black number in the corner from a couple weeks ago, its appearance giving away nothing of its value.  That had been the day they had found the Blue Lion.  It had also been the night she and Ken had mated (the first, though far from the last.  It really could have been any one of the subsequent days after, but she had a feeling it had been that night, based on how far along she felt)  

This wasn't part of the plan.  Krolia had never, ever wanted cubs.  She couldn't bear the thought of bringing a life into a world that was so stricken with violence, not after having her own family and planet ripped from her at such a young age.  She was a soldier by trade, embroiled in perilous missions in some of the most dangerous quadrants of the universe, and for the longest time there had been no certainty that she would survive one day to the next.  Her safety was only marginally better here on Earth, relatively quiet but still on the fringe of the most dangerous empire in the universe.  She was right to believe she shouldn't bring a cub into such a world.  It was dangerous.  That's why Galra biology had evolved the way it had; Galra could not become pregnant if they were in a situation where it was unsafe to bring a new life into the world, or if they had zero inclination to become a parent.  There were too many parts of the galaxy where selective gamete developmental pausing was responsible for saving entire species by not allowing conception to take place until danger had passed.  

Krolia released a slow, tense sigh through her nose.  Her brain was well aware that her time on this planet, while extensive at the moment, was ultimately temporary, and then it would be back to the front lines.  Apparently, though, her body had not received the memo.  

And yet... she wasn't resentful.  She was proud of the life that was growing inside her, created with her chosen mate.  She wanted this, deep down, in a way that she had never experienced before she crashed on this strange planet.  The emotion defied logic, bucking it like a wild horse determined not to be saddled with something as harsh and cold as reality.  Krolia had regrets, yes; she regretted that she had painted a huge and permanent target over the heads of Ken, their unborn cub, and herself.  She regretted that her blood would make things extraordinarily difficult for her cub, growing up on a planet where aliens were unheard of, in a universe largely controlled by an empire that was not kind to hybrids, to say the very least.  She regretted that her communicator could ring at any time with orders to send her back to the front lines of the battle.  If she confided in Kolivan, he might grant her leave until the birth (begrudgingly, she was sure, but she had enough strings to pull that she could probably get him to allow it), but after that... she wouldn't be able to stay.  And that was her greatest regret, that she would have to bring this cub into the world and wouldn't even be able to be there for them.  She knew what it felt like to be orphaned at a young age, and she told herself a long time ago that she would never let that happen.  

But... she realized, glancing over at where Ken was working on repairing a radio at the small desk in the corner of the shack.  She supposed her cub wouldn't be an orphan, even if she was forced to leave.  They would have their father, and the relative safety of living so far out in the desert.  She wouldn't be doing this alone, by herself.  She had him, and he was kind enough to raise a cub and smart enough to hide a hybrid and keep them safe.  Even if he had to do it without her.  

It wasn't ideal.  But maybe it would be okay.  

Krolia took a deep breath and walked over to him, laying a hand on his shoulder.  "Ken?"

He looked up from his work, lips curved into that soft smile that both calmed her heart and made it race.  "Yeah, babe?"

Krolia smiled.  "I think I'm with cub."  

Surprise and confusion made his smile slip and his brows furrow, and she panicked for a moment; had she been wrong in her assessment of his character, and he didn't want this at all?  "You're... wait, are you saying you're with child?"

A beat of silence passed and it was Krolia's turn to be confused.  "What's a child?"

"A baby?"  Ken tried.  "Uh... offspring?"  

Krolia wrinkled her nose.  She hadn't the faintest idea what a baby was, and 'offspring' was just such an animalistic way to refer to one's cubs.  

Ken tried again.  "You..." He reached out hesitantly and touched the very tips of his fingers to her stomach.  "You have another life growing inside of you, that both of us created?"  He looked up at her.  

She smiled and nodded, and she knew their moment of communication differences had passed when his expression lit up with joy.  He stood up and embraced her.  "We're having a baby..." 

"Cub."  She corrected with a soft laugh as she nuzzled the side of his hair.  He chuckled and let his forehead drop onto her shoulder, shaking it fondly.  

"Whatever it is, it's going to be ours."  Ken placed a hand more fully on her stomach, seeking out the small, barely-noticeable bump there.

Krolia frowned.  "They."  

"What?"  He looked up.

"We don't use 'it' for living creatures."  Krolia told him.  "Until their gender is realized, it is typical to refer to an unborn cub as 'they'."   

He nodded.  "That makes sense.  Okay.  When do you think they'll be born?"

"Mid-to-late October."  Krolia replied.  

Rather than looking overjoyed, Ken just looked suspicious.  "That's not even nine months from when you arrived on Earth."

"I estimated using my knowledge of how long Galra gestation cycles are.  Perhaps it is different from that of humans."  She showed him the notebook of calculations.  She realized something as he looked them over.  "There's no precedent for Galra-human hybrid development, though. If human gestation periods are longer, it might take a bit longer..." She hoped not.  The longer it took, the greater the chance was of her being ordered away, and that would complicate things greatly.  But she didn't want the cub to be born before they were done developing either...  And what if there were problems with the development?  She had no contact with Galran medical professionals, it was too dangerous to make contact with them, and going to a human hospital was out of the question.  They might detain her, interrogate Ken... might even cut her open.  And while she had long ago come to terms with her high probability of death, the thought of what would be done to her cub was unbearable and caused a surge of fear to grip her chest...   

Ken set the notebook down to draw her into an embrace, as if he could sense her unease.  "Whatever happens, it'll work out.  Everything will be okay."  

Krolia let her eyes fall closed and leaned into his arms with a sigh, letting herself believe that.  His thumb stroked over her abdomen and she couldn't help but smile.  

She had regrets about this situation, yes, but the life growing inside her was not one of them.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guess who's showing up next chapter! (However, with that, the next chapter deals with pregnancy and the day Keith is born, BUT, as pregnancy is a bit of a squicky thing for me – I know, I know, it's a beautiful miracle and all that, but it still hits some dysphoria points for me – it won't be very in-depth. Mostly focusing on emotions, discussing names, discussing differences in human and Galra culture/gender... not so much the physical aspects of pregnancy. Do with that as you will) 
> 
> BONUS: 
> 
> Keith: "so does that mean I was an 'oopsie-baby'?"   
> Krolia: …...   
> Ken: "Look, Keith, everything about this family is unconventional—"   
> Krolia: "We definitely wanted you, let's just leave it at that."   
> Keith: "Oh m _y god I was!_


	5. Calm Before the Storm

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You cannot convince me that aliens would have the same gender hang-ups as humans.  Granted they would probably have their own different ones, but still. Like, you've got a universe of infinite possibilities, and you think everyone else is going to stick with fixed binary genders assigned at birth? Please, boooorring...

Krolia frowned at the bump of her stomach where  she knew her cub-- baby... whatever they were, was resting.  "I think this is supposed to be bigger."  She said.  Based on her memories of her life before joining the Blade, when she watched her mother and packmates grow larger with their cubs.  Yet at the same time, something told her that hers was okay.

"Well, humans take nine months to develop, not five."  Ken pointed out while he unpacked the groceries from his monthly trip into town.  He was mostly self-sufficient out here, but some things like long-shelf cans of food and other necessities still needed to be purchased.  Especially with Krolia's growing appetite, particularly for meat.  He lifted his shoulders in a shrug.  "Maybe they're developing at a pace somewhere between a human and a Galra, so they aren't done yet."  

"I don't know..." Krolia sighed and eased herself down onto the couch.  She cradled her bump pensively.  "I feel like it's getting close.  I think it's almost time."  It was already October, but she hardly looked at the calendar on the wall.  Paper and lines and pretty pictures of the desert couldn't tell her what her body and instincts could.  She felt a small tap under her rubbing hand and she smiled, pressing down slightly and tracing the shape of a tiny foot or a hand pushing up against her.  

"Are you sure?"  Ken asked, closing up the cabinet as he looked over his shoulders.  

Her eyes flicked up, hardening.  "You doubt my instincts?"  

"Absolutely not."  He knew better than to argue with her, even when her temper flared unexpectedly these days.  Better yet, he always knew how to soothe her, like a balm specially designed for her alone.  "You haven't been wrong yet.  But we're both shooting in the dark here.  We should prepare for every possibility."  

She supposed he was right.  A Galra's maternal or paternal instincts would help to guide them along a Galra pregnancy, but she had gone and thrown human DNA into the mix, and there was no telling how that would play out.  

"I stopped by the library, while I was in town."  Ken said, picking up a backpack and joining her on the couch.  "I've helped repair their bookmobile a couple of times in years past, so the head librarian lets me keep books out longer than standard since I live so far from town.  But I had to make up a pretty extensive excuse about how I'm writing a novel, to get these books.  Not sure what she thinks I'm writing, though... But the alternative was her thinking I knocked up a girl from town and that would have too many questions, so Ken the weird porn novelist it is."  

Krolia gave him a mollified look as he took the books out of the bag one at a time and set them on the makeshift table.   _What to Expect When You're Expecting, the Midwife's Handbook, A Mother's Guide to Home Births, The Cat Breeding Guidebook,_ and  _What to Expect When Your Bitch is Expecting_.  Krolia picked up the last two ( _particularly_ that last one) and gave him a flat look.  "What the fuck is this."  He had best choose his next words carefully, or she was fully prepared to hit him over the head with it and see how he liked being called a 'bitch'.

"They didn't have anything about aliens, and I don't know, Galra seem kind of cat-like?  And the dog one was just next to it."  Ken said defensively.  "I just thought having a variety of information couldn't hurt."  He pointed to the dog one.  "For the record, I didn't like that title either."  

She rolled her eyes but decided not to bludgeon him with his own reading selection.  Instead, she flipped open the cat book and studied the creature on the first page, her confusion growing.  "You think I resemble this?"  Granted, she knew Galra who had ears somewhat like that, and tails, but she knew  _Ken_ didn't.  He only knew her, and she wasn't sure whether she ought to be offended by the supposed resemblance or not.  

"No, but you're agile and purr sometimes..." Ken trailed off, as if beginning to rethink his decision.  "Again, we're shooting in the dark.  Best to have all the information we can."

Krolia shrugged and set the book down on the table again.  She knew he was probably right, but she didn't feel like reading all this right now.  Her instincts should take care of everything.  Her gaze caught on one more book, a rather thick one that had been the last to be taken out of the bag.  "What's that one?"

Ken smiled and pulled it closer.  "A book of names.  I thought we could pick something out together."  

Krolia blinked, confused.  "Why?"  

Ken faltered.  "So... the baby has a name when they're born?"  

"But we don't know what they'll be like yet."  Krolia pointed out.  "Do humans name their cubs before they're even born?"  

"Yeah."  Ken said.  "Most of the time, parents get ultrasounds at the doctor to check that the baby is healthy, and doing so lets them also see the baby's sex, so they can pick out a boy or a girl name.  Or if they wait to find out until the baby is born, they'll pick one or two boy and girl names that they like.  Birth certificates are usually written up when the baby is born, and their name included on it."  

"That's all very presumptive."  Krolia frowned.  "It's impossible for parents to know the gender of their cub before they realize it themselves.  Most don't have a strong sense of gender until they are a few decaphoebes old, at least, and it's not uncommon for them to change their alignment a few times before settling on something.  Of course, if they decide later to identify as something else, their body naturally takes care of the hormones."  She shook her head.  "There is no such thing as 'boy names' or 'girl names' among Galra.  And we certainly don't shoehorn a cub into an identity by bestowing a name until we are sure it will suit their personality."  

"When do you usually bestow names, then?"  Ken asked.

"When the personality of the cub is more apparent.  Usually within the first few decaphoebes—years, I think you call it."

Ken looked down at his thumb rubbing over the book's pages, quiet.  "What if we don't have that long?"  He asked.

Krolia paused, realization hitting her like one of the downpours that sometimes fell over the desert, sudden and without warning.  She couldn't have a typical Galra parenthood, as much as she wanted to (and she desperately wanted to, now, in a way that she never had before she met Ken).  Her gaze came to rest on her communicator, perched on the shelf where she often left it.  Every day she prayed it wouldn't ring, but there was never any way to tell when – not if, she was too valuable of a soldier for 'if' to be a possibility – it would drag her away from this life she was carefully building.  

She nodded slowly and pulled the book towards her.  "...We can pick out a few names, just in case.  But I'd still like to wait, and I want you to pick the most suitable one for them, if... if I can't."  If she had to leave, but it hurt too much to say that.  

Ken squeezed her hand and leaned over to press a kiss to her cheek.  "I promise."  

~~~~~~~

All the time they previously spent repairing her ship and exploring the desert came to be used for reading the books.  Krolia's visual translator was tiresome to look at for extended periods, so she often reclined on the couch with her legs in Ken's lap while he read out loud the passages he thought might be helpful.  Some, like a water birth, she scoffed at (as if Galra regularly had enough access to such a surplus of water to even develop that practice), but others, like building a comfortable nest in a quiet environment, sounded right to her and made something instinctual nod in agreement in the back of her mind (she had a sneaky suspicion that tip was from the cat book, since Ken wouldn't let her see the cover).  They put together some plans to suit a number of possibilities for complications, too, and stocked up on water and clean rags.  Even though Krolia firmly maintained that her agility was unhampered by her pregnancy, Ken insisted on disassembling half the attic to move the mattress down to the ground floor, and then got unduly worried when he poked his head down only to find Krolia hadn't waited for him and had taken apart the makeshift table and rearranged the furniture to tuck the mattress into the corner she liked best.  She was almost offended by his concern; her bump truly wasn't even so big as to make movement difficult, and she was made of stronger stuff than that.  She could tell that her cub was, too.

Her instincts grumbled over the state of her nest, but Ken only had about three blankets in his shack at all, so she didn't have much to work with.  She settled for raiding his narrow wardrobe and arranging every article of clothing he owned into her nest.  After all, she wanted to welcome their cub into a world that smelled comforting (and the look on his face when he came in from the well and saw her setting his boots next to the pillow was pretty amusing, too)

The two of them spent a lot of time curled up in the nest, going over possibilities for names.  Krolia still felt uneasy about the practice, but the thought of not having a hand in her cub's naming at all made her more uneasy, so she swallowed her discomfort and tried to approach the task with an open mind.  She didn't like the sound of a lot of the human names, others she didn't like the meaning of.  She sometimes suggested Galra names, but they wanted to help their child blend in, so sometimes they worked the Galra names into something more human-sounding.  They quickly ran out of unisex names, so Krolia begrudgingly let him look through the 'girls' and 'boys' names while muttering that such a practice was needlessly complicated.  The cub would know their gender, given time, whether that was female-leaning, male-leaning, or something else.  If she was being honest, though, there were times when she rested her hand on her bump, concentrated on feeling the tiny body within her, and somehow got the feeling the cub would be more male-leaning.  It was the same sort of feeling that told her they were developing well despite the smallness of the bump, and that her nest was suitable, and that the birth would be soon, so she trusted it.  But she knew it wasn't written in stone.  When she confided her feeling to Ken, he flipped to the 'boy' section of the book despite her frustrated head drop and muttering that he was jumping the gun.  

"Your instincts have been brilliant so far, Krolia."  Ken reasoned.  Stars damn him, he always knew what to say to her.  He trailed his finger down the list while she glared up at the ceiling, hands cradling the bump that was her cub.  "What about Keith?"

Krolia blinked.  A moment later, she felt a strong kick from within her.  She rubbed the spot gently, soothing her cub.  "Actually, that's really similar to a word from my planet.  Not a name, but a word in the dialect.   _K_ _y_ _ith_."  The –th was softer, and she wouldn't have known how to write it in his alphabet if she tried.  She wasn't even sure how it would be written in Galran; it was a non-standard, dialect word she had only heard older members of her pack use, and had never once seen written.  And, given the destruction of her planet, she never would.  

"What does it mean?"  Ken asked, curious.  

"' _Brave one_ '." Krolia said.  "But a bit diminutive.  Fond."  She smiled sadly.  "Older packmates often called young cubs who are beginning to teach themselves to fight with sticks that.  I was called that a number of times in my youth."  She remembered where he found the name and turned to him.  "What does it mean, in human language?"

"It's Scottish or Irish, according to this.  I'm not either, but that doesn't matter."  Ken read the little blurb next to the name.  "It means ' _dwells in_ _the woods_ ', or ' _from the battleground_ '."  

Krolia laughed.  " _'From the_ _battleground...'_  Oddlysimilar to my language, then.  I like it.  A nice blend between our two backgrounds, and maybe it will remind them that their mother is from the battleground, too."  

Ken added that to their list, drawing a small star next to it.  "What do you want me to tell them, about you?"  He asked quietly.

Krolia's smile slipped and she sobered as she considered the question.  She let out a slow exhale before answering.  "Not much.  I don't want them to be in danger because of what I am.  If they can blend in as human, it would be best not to mention that I'm Galra at all."  She rubbed her hand over the bump and took a deep, unsteady breath – damn her surge of hormones...  "Tell them I love them more than there are stars in the sky, and that I'll always be thinking of them, no matter where in the universe we both are."   

Ken wrapped an arm around her shoulders and with his other hand wiped a traitorous tear that had slipped down her cheek.  He pressed a kiss to the spot as he laid his hand over hers on her belly.  "I promise I will."

~~~~~~~

Late in the afternoon of the twenty-third – right in the middle of her original prediction – Krolia found herself growing restless.  She paced around the shack, feeling restless and a little snappish.  Ken drew fresh water from the well and set it next to the stove to be boiled if needed, and had to bargain with Krolia over the clean rags set aside for the delivery, which she insisted needed to be added to the nest (they compromised by splitting the rags.  Krolia even tore one in half with her own strength to ensure they were even, despite Ken's sputtering that that was a bit unnecessary).  She refused to eat much at dinner and paced more and more as the sun set and Ken lit the candles and hurricane lamp to keep the inside of the shack well-lit; he didn't think they would be sleeping much tonight.

"Kro, please come to bed," Ken sighed.  "You should be resting, not walking around."  

"No, need to walk."  Krolia replied shortly.  

"That can't be good for the baby..." Ken mumbled, reaching for the one of the human pregnancy books.  

Something irrational snapped in Krolia.  "I'm not human!"  She shouted.  Ken froze and her cub kicked at her, a sense of unease radiating through their shared bond.  She rubbed the bump and murmured a "sorry" to them both.  

"Okay, do what you need to do."  Ken said softly.  "I trust you.  Everything's going to be okay."  

She growled and started pacing again.  It wasn't going to be okay.  There were a million things that could go wrong, during and after the birth.  She was a fool to think it would be okay to burden a young hybrid with her blood only to leave them at an undetermined time in their future...

"Krolia."  Ken touched her shoulder.  His eyes were soft and kind and everything she needed that moment.  "It's going to be okay."  

Whatever words Krolia was about to say died in her throat as a sudden pain seized through her abdomen.  She looked down at him, eyes wide.  "They're coming."

For some reason completely beyond her, his first instinct was to look out the window.  "Who—?"

"The cub.  Baby."  Krolia snapped.  "They are coming,  _now_."

"Oh!"  Ken looked down at her stomach.  "Okay, okay, you should lay down--"

"I know!"  Krolia was already on her way over to the nest.  The cub seemed to lurch inside her and a sense of urgency bubbled in her chest.  This cub was not going to wait until the two parents got things in order, they were going to come out  _now_.  

"Okay, we need water, hot water..." Ken turned on the stove and set a pot on top.  

Krolia growled lowly and bit her tongue to keep from snapping at him again.  She had never understood his obsession with the water; this cub was going to come out on their own, they didn't need water.  Galra didn't exactly have a lot of spare water around to waste on cub birth.

In the end, it ended up being extremely quick.  This cub did not seem to want to wait to get out into the world.  Krolia had heard of some Galra having to push for a long time, but comparatively, her cub seemed to slip right out.  Not completely without effort, of course, but considering Krolia had been worried about any number of complications happening, it was easier than she had anticipated.  

"It's a girl!"  Ken held up the tiny, bloody being that immediately started to cry.  

Krolia smacked her fist against the mattress in frustration.  "What did I tell you about 'it'?  And give them some time to figure out their gender themselves, they were literally just born!"  

"Sorry, habit."  Ken apologized as he wiped the baby off with a soft cloth and warm water.  Their skin was a reddish-peach color, save for purple markings that looked similar to her own, starting on their cheeks below scrunched-up eyes and continuing down their back until they each split into a fork to frame their little tummy.  They had a loud cry, but Krolia knew it was a good and healthy sound to clear out their lungs.  Ken finished wiping off their leg and curiously peered between them.  "That really is what a human female baby looks like..." He said.  

Temper flaring again, Krolia reached for her cub and looked herself.  "Normal Galra of any gender.  You're just going to have to wait."  

Ken nodded and stood up, carrying the basin of bloody rags back to the kitchen to retrieve some clean ones.  "We'll need to cut the umbilical cord, too—"

"Yes, soon."  Krolia mused, cradling her cub.  She held out a hand.  "Knife."  

Looking nervous, Ken reached for one of the knives in the kitchen block.  

Krolia made an impatient noise.  "No,  _my_ knife.  My blade."  

"Isn't this ceremonial?"  Ken asked, retrieving it from the shelf.  "Is that... allowed?"

"Luxite always maintains its sharpness, is sterile, and self-cleaning."  She explained, sliding the knife out of the sheath.  "It is the safest option."  That, and she had the most confidence with it in her hand, rather than some other knife.  It tied her to her brothers and sisters in the Blade and had been the thing to save her life more times than she could count; it was only fitting that she should use it now.   

She deftly twisted and pinched the umbilical cord at a certain point and cut through it in one clean slice.  At once, she felt her now-familiar bond with the cub fade a bit, and that was unfortunate, but necessary.  She still had her instincts and knew what they needed, so she guided the little mouth to her breast to drink.  

Quiet settled over the shack for the first time that day, and Krolia allowed herself to finally relax as she shifted the cub to a more comfortable position in her arms.  They had little tufts of dark hair on their head already, and their light violet markings were just a bit paler than her own.  She was concerned about those, afraid they would make trouble for the young hybrid in hiding, but they would worry about that... tomorrow.  For now, they could both just rest for a bit.  

Ken paused in his cleaning up and came to sit next to her on the mattress, sliding an arm around her shoulders as they looked down together at the newest addition to their strange little family.  "They're beautiful."  Ken whispered, his voice awed.  He kissed leaned up to kiss her cheek and brush her sweaty hair behind a pointed ear.  "You did amazing.  I never doubted your instincts, but I'm glad you were right." 

"I told you I would know what to do, when the time came.  Paper and ink books can't beat thousands of generations of knowledge passed down through Galra blood." Krolia smiled and felt her chest swell with pride, a low purr building deep in her.  Immediately, the little cub let out a sigh and relaxed into the sound until they fell asleep a few minutes later. 

~~~~~~~

The threat of Krolia's communicator ringing still hung over her head, but thankfully, it remained silent and still on the bookshelf.  She was extraordinarily grateful for every day she had with her cub, as she could not imagine the pain it would cause both of them for her to leave when they needed her most.  She would have to leave eventually, she knew, so she savored every day she had.  

Through discussion, she and Ken realized that humans and Galra developed very differently.  Galra cubs developed rapidly at first, so as to better their chances of survival in harsh environments.  They usually opened their eyes soon after birth, grew teeth and could start purring in about three weeks, and could take their first wobbly steps around four weeks.  Human babies, she learned, developed much slower.  They had no idea what their cub would do, though, so every milestone came as a bit of a surprise.  Eyes opened shortly after birth, and when they did, they discovered the baby had inherited Krolia's eye color (purple irises, but thankfully white eyes rather than yellow).  This worried her at first, because Ken's were so different and he said most people had blue or brown eyes, but he assured her that some people did in fact have naturally purple-colored irises, it was just rare.  

Teeth came in around four weeks (disappointingly flat, but she supposed that was better for blending in as human), but purring started before that.  Their purr was a thin, weak sound that had her worrying about the state of their vocal chords until they cried.  At that, she leaned back with a grimace and stuck her finger in her ear, and decided it was just a side effect of the human DNA.  When they lay with their baby between them, Ken sometimes jokingly called them his "mama cat and kitten".  Their cub often woke frequently in the middle of the night and would start fussing or crying, but Krolia could usually soothe them back to sleep by pulling them close and purring.  She wondered, sometimes, how humans soothed their young without the ability to purr, but she solved that mystery when she got out of the shower one evening to find Ken pacing slowly around the shack with their cub in his arms, making strange sounds that were almost like words, but longer, softer, and more drawn out.

"What are you doing?"  Krolia asked curiously, leaning against the doorframe.

Ken turned around and chuckled quietly.  "Singing.  I'm not very good at it, and I don't really know any children's songs, but the tone matters more than the words.  It's kind of like your purring."  

"Hm," Krolia smiled and watched him as he continued to sway with a slow rhythm and softly sing to their cub, who was rapidly growing sleepy under his ministrations.  In little time at all, they were asleep with one small hand curled in his flannel shirt.  Enamored with the scene, Krolia came up behind her mate and slid her arms around his waist, kissing his cheek. 

~~~~~~~~

As time went on, they realized their cub was developing somewhere between a slow pace for a Galra cub and a rapid pace for a human baby.  Crawling started about five weeks (Krolia was used to cubs walking about within the first month, but Ken said human babies couldn't even crawl until seven months).  Soon, it wasn't long at all until they were pulling themselves up by furniture and taking wobbly steps on their own.  

"This really isn't very safe."  Ken pointed out for the umpteenth time as he frowned around at the desert.  "The desert is full of dangerous things."  

"Nonsense.  We can keep them safe.  They need to explore the world a little."  Krolia said, setting her cub down outside the door of the shack.  She folded her legs under her and sat cross-legged on the ground.  It was a relatively cool day for the desert, in the middle of winter, and even though the sun was bright in the sky the air was far from scorching, so she thought it was the perfect day to let her cub explore a bit (they were already growing bored with the below-knee-level furniture of the shack and were trying to climb up higher, so it was hardly any more dangerous than letting them play inside)

"People don't normally give their kids free reign over a desert, Krolia."  Ken said, crouching down to steer their cub away from the direction of the well (it was still about fifteen feet behind him, they weren't anywhere near it).  He let out a sigh of relief when they giggled and headed off in the opposite direction.

"People don't normally have half-human, half-Galra kids, either."  Krolia pointed out as she leaned back on her hands, letting the sun soak into her arms.  Their cub toddled off to pat the shiny casing of the generator next to the house, then pick up a rock, then set it down in favor of picking up a stick instead.  They seemed to be enraptured by the feeling of the sandy dirt, rubbing their hands through it, and Ken grumbled about getting dirty but Krolia reminded him they had a bathtub, for goodness sake, just let the cub be a cub.  

"They shouldn't stay out in the sun for too long, though."  Ken said.  

"We'll go inside in a bit."  Krolia said, watching her cub pick up rock after rock and examine them with as much intense scrutiny as they could fit in their tiny face.  "Just let them play.  They're bored."  

Ken sighed and took a seat on the ground next to her, still putting himself between the well and their cub (the well was taller than their cub, she hadn't the faintest idea how he thought they would accidentally get into it).  Ken hooked his arms around his propped-up knees.  "So, have you given any more thought to a name, yet?  Or can you tell the gender yet?"

Krolia hummed.  "I still get the feeling they're male-leaning.  They won't show signs of it for at least another decaphoebe, though, and it won't become really obvious until puberty.  But my instincts say male-leaning."  She watched them toddle a few more feet and crouch down to reach for a stick.  "As for personality, they seem quiet but friendly, and very curious and inquisitive—"  

The sand just in front of their cub erupted in a burst of movement and they both realized that the cub had not grabbed a stick, but the tail of a long, brown snake that had been hiding in the rocks.  Krolia reached for her knife, Ken let out a yelp, and the cub... immediately smacked their other hand out to pin the creature's head between the dirt and their chubby little palm, the length of the body wriggling madly between their hands.  The cub looked up at them, violet eyes blinking a question;  _...what now?_   

Both of them were on their feet in an instant.  Ken grabbed the back of the snake's head and picked it up while Krolia scooped up her cub.  Cursing under his breath, Ken carried the snake far away from the shack and set it in some rocks before backing away quickly, and to Krolia's utter amusement, their cub waved a little hand in the snake's direction as it slithered away.  

"Such a  _kyith_! My brave little cub!"  Krolia laughed, bouncing them on her hip.  "I think we found your name, little one!"  She lifted her arms and spun him around as Ken came back, the human throwing dark looks in the direction of the rocks.  Krolia let out a pleased purr when their cub made a happy chirping noise and waved their hands, seemingly thrilled with the movement.  "What do you think, little cub?  Do you like the name Keith?"  

She wasn't sure if they understood the words, but they clapped and laughed anyway.  So, Keith it was.   

~~~~~~~

Krolia frowned lightly as she rubbed a washcloth down Keith's arm and chest.  The adventurous little cub had spotted a dust-devil from the window and had wandered out to look at it while the two of them were making lunch, and while uninjured, had ended up covered in dirt.  Krolia even had to use her Marmora mask to locate him in the dust storm.  They would have to keep a closer watch, now that he was tall enough to stand on tip-toe and reach the doorknob.  Krolia's shared bond with her cub was dim, but still there, and she could tell now that the cub was beginning to identify more as male-leaning.  She had told Ken this, but pressed it into him that it was not permanent (humans had a frustratingly fixed view of gender, but she appreciated that he was trying to understand Galra gender better).  

Krolia cradled Keith's head and rubbed the soft cloth over his face.  He scrunched up his nose in displeasure but didn't resist her grooming.  She ran a thumb over the purple skin tapering to a point on his cheek.  "These marks worry me." Krolia told Ken, who was in the kitchen finishing up their dust-devil-adventure-interrupted lunch.  

He looked over his shoulder at her through the open bathroom door.  "You have them, so they can't be harmful, right?"  

"Physically, no, of course not."  She wet the cloth and ran it over his dark hair, becoming thicker and fuller every day.  It was getting long enough to curl up at the back of his head, now, like a little duck tail.  He made a face and hunched his shoulders up.  Krolia snorted quietly at the reaction.  "No, it's no different than the brown spot markings you have on your shoulders."

"Freckles."  Ken corrected.  And he had already explained they weren't identifying marks, but came from exposure to the sun.  

She shrugged.  A rather cute word, for a rather cute set of markings, she thought.  "But I'm worried about the impact they'll have on his life.  What if someone sees them, and asks questions?"  

"We can say it's a birthmark, or maybe vitiligo or a melanin condition."  Ken said, setting down a couple of sandwiches and a small bowl of oatmeal on the low table.  Keith's eyes locked on the bowl, recognizing it, and he waved his arms impatiently and kicked his legs under the shallow water.  

"You're still a mess, and it's entirely your fault."  Krolia told the cub, wiping dirt off his other arm.  He huffed and pouted but didn't protest.  Krolia finished cleaning him off and lifted him out of the washbasin, setting him on his feet.  The little cub tried to take off toward the table when she reached for a towel, but her hand snapped out with battle-honed and mother-instinct reflexes and grabbed him around his arm to draw him back.  

"Do you think people will believe it's a birthmark?"  Krolia asked Ken as she dried her lovable disaster of a cub off, cracking a smile at his scrunched-up pout while she rubbed the towel over his hair.   

"Well, it's oddly symmetrical to be a birthmark..." Ken said slowly, pouring a glass of water for each of them while Krolia put Keith's clothes back on.  "But it's not an impossible idea.  If anyone asks, that'll be the story.  But I'll keep him here, away from town, you know, so hopefully not too many people will ask."

Krolia nodded, satisfied with both that and her grooming.  "Alright, fine, go eat your lunch."  She patted him on the back and the cub toddled over to the table, grabbing the lip of the bowl of oatmeal before Ken could reach it.  The whole bowl came down on his head with a clatter and wet splat. 

There was a stunned second of silence, then Keith started giggling as the oatmeal dripped down his hair and face. 

Krolia tried to look stern and not laugh with him.  "I don't know what you're so happy about, you've just earned yourself another bath."  

Keith stared at her, looking stricken, and his expression made both of his parents burst out laughing.       

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *insert meme of that crazed-looking guy with the conspiracy corkboard* In case you haven't picked up on it, this piece is connected to some other things I've written. It's technically in the same AU as my [Keith and the Blade of Marmora](https://archiveofourown.org/series/924888) series, particularly [this](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14275002) and [this](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14366505) which both feature Krolia, and Keith's name comes up in [this](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13111917) one but sadly he doesn't know the actual reasoning behind his name at the time. As Krolia said, "kyith" is a dialect word from her planet specifically, that other Galra like Kolivan and Antok and Thace wouldn't know. And those Galra maternal/paternal instincts Krolia experiences are also part of the worldbuilding in [this (pt 0)](https://bouquetofwhoopsiedaisies.tumblr.com/post/171759954429/i-love-your-blade-of-marmora-x-keith-series-so-i) and continued [here on AO3](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14220099/chapters/32783028) little saga (warning for mpreg). THAT BEING SAID, you don't _have_ to read all of those, this one can be enjoyed on its own too. But if you want more? _There's more_.


	6. Breaking Point

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I skipped a few months because, frankly, I'm clueless when it comes to How Babies Work. The gist of it is Keith keeps developing faster than a full-blooded human would. There's some disagreement about his first word; Krolia thinks "gack!" counts because _obviously_ he's trying to say the acronym for Galactic Accredited Currency, GAC, but Ken is pretty sure that's just baby babble (also _where would he have heard that, Krolia, you've never said that around him??_ ) But a few days later he said "da-da", which Krolia doesn't think is close enough to "dad", so basically they just agree to disagree on the whole first word thing, XD And then he starts talking pretty soon after that.

 

“Mommy, how come you’re purple an' me an’ Daddy aren’t?”  Keith asked one evening, pensively looking at his arm while she bathed him.  “Did I used’ta be purple?”  He poked at the fading purple marks on his tummy, once a shade of mauve like hers but now only the faintest lilac, looking more like a spill of wine on his skin than her Galra markings.  

“Close your eyes.”  Krolia told him, smiling in amusement as he scrunched up his entire face and hunched his shoulders.  She used the moments of pouring water over his hair to think about his question and choose her answer carefully.  “You were never all purple, but you had purple markings when you were born, like I have.”  

“How come you still have yours an' I don't?”  Keith blinked up at her.  

“I don’t know,” that much was true.  Ken had told her that sometimes human babies were born with different colored eyes, or certain kinds of birthmarks that faded as they grew older.  Galra markings, she knew, didn’t normally fade, though.  “Maybe you’re just more grown up than me.”  She smiled and pinched his nose.  

Keith giggled.  Krolia ran a hand through his hair to check to make sure all the soap suds were gone.  Then she pulled the plug to drain the tub, and had him stand up so she could towel him off.  

“Why do you an’ Daddy look different?”  Keith asked.  

Krolia let out a slow breath through her nose.  She had been hoping he had forgotten that question, but it seemed he would keep going until he got answers.  Frustratingly like herself, she thought wryly.  

She chose her words carefully.  “Mommy and Daddy came from very different places, so we look very different.  But we still love each other, and you.”

“Where’d you come from, then?”  Keith asked while she helped him get dressed in his sleeping clothes.  

Krolia took her time buttoning up his shirt.  It was too dangerous to tell him the truth, that his mother was an alien who had come to this planet on a secret mission to find a superweapon that was the only thing that could defeat a genocidal emperor.  That was too much to explain to such a young cub.  He wasn't even a year old.  “I came from somewhere very, very far away.”  She said slowly.  “You know how we go outside late at night and look up at the stars, and tell you stories about the shapes they make?”  When he nodded, she went on.  “That’s where I’m from.  From a land among the stars.  Maybe one day, I can tell you more about it, and you can even go there.”  It was a foolish dream, she knew; the universe would never be safe enough to show him, not in his lifetime.  This war was far from over.  She sighed and forced a smile.  “But for now, it’s time for bed.”  She told him, patting his shoulders with finality.  

Keith pouted, but Krolia reminded him he had been yawning since dinner, which prompted yet another wide-mouthed yawn, and he had to admit he was sleepy.  Chuckling at the way he nearly swayed on his feet, she scooped her cub up and carried him out of the bathroom.  They had rearranged in the past few months, neatening up the nest Krolia had built for her birth and instead assembling the proper bed downstairs, tucked into the corner under the window where the couch used to be.  The couch itself was upstairs, which had been converted into a sort of temporary storage area.  It could go back to being a bedroom when she could trust her cub’s agility and balance to climb the ladder to reach the upstairs.  

The biggest change, though, lay underneath the rug in the center of the shack.  There had always been a cellar underneath the shack, built to access the water pipes that ran below the floor and used as a dark, cool place to cure and dry the meat from the desert hares and creatures Ken sometimes hunted for food.  He had even dabbled in photography a little in the past, and he showed Krolia the camera (so old compared to Galra tech that she hadn’t the faintest idea what it was) and how it worked and how to make the pictures in the darkroom made by the small cellar.  Now, though, the walls were dug out a little more and reinforced with thick slabs of concrete and cinderblock bricks.  There was a large jug of water sealed up in the corner, and in addition to the curing meats, there were several canned goods, iodine tablets, flashlights, batteries, blankets, bandages, and anything else needed to survive down there for a certain amount of time.  They did not like to think about it, but the reality of the situation was that Zarkon wanted the Blue Lion and would do anything to get it.  He had invaded planets with little care for the inhabitants before, more times than could be counted.  It was only natural to assume he would do the same with Earth.  The question was not  _if_  he would invade, but  _when_.  And Krolia was determined to ensure Ken and Keith had a safe place to wait out the firefight when it came.  

The trapdoor, reinforced with concrete, did not even squeak under the rug as she walked over it, cub already falling asleep against her chest.  Ken was at his desk in the corner, tinkering with his radio equipment and frowning in thought as he adjusted the wires inside.  

“Say goodnight to Daddy,” Krolia set Keith on his feet.  Ken’s pinched frown instantly smoothed out and he turned in his chair to welcome his child into his arms as Keith clambered up to his lap to bid him goodnight.  After a hug and a kiss, Krolia took him back and carried him over to the bed in the corner to tuck him in, settling him in his place in the center, ready for his two parents to join him to either side in a few hours.  

Ken turned down the volume on his radio to the minimum as he kept working, brows pulling together once more as he adjusted the dial.  

“How’s it going?”  Krolia asked quietly, standing behind him with her hands on his shoulders.  She knew he was trying to strengthen the signal of his radios to hear beyond Earth’s borders.  He joked that it was to keep in contact with her when she had to leave, and she believed that was part of it, but she knew he had been trying to do the same since before she had even gotten here.  

“I’ve managed to locate some kind of signal that doesn’t seem to be on AM or FM frequencies, but it’s hard to tell how far away the signal is coming from,” Ken replied.  “I can’t understand what’s being said.  It doesn’t sound like any language I’ve heard, but there are thousands of languages on Earth.”  

“Let me hear it?”  Krolia crouched down beside his chair and rested her arms on the desk edge, getting close to the radio.  

Glancing toward Keith to make sure the child wasn’t disturbed by the noise, Ken turned the radio up just a little bit.

_“—orders to congregate upon the location as soon as possible.”_

_“Copy that.  Commander, what is your position?”_

_“My fleet is currently in the_ _Kalfarian_ _quadrant.  We can reach the rendezvous location in approximately seventeen to twenty_ _vargas_ _.”_

_“Copy that.”_

Krolia’s eyes narrowed.  That was Galran.  What was this location they were talking about?  An average Galran warship travelling from the Kalfarian quadrant in an unknown direction in approximately seventeen to twenty vargas… that could be the Jarikol system, or the perhaps the San’mi… or… 

Krolia froze.  This system.  Earth.  They could be coming to Earth.  

The radio crackled again.   _“Lieutenant, this is captain_ _Tarvolt_ _confirming new orders to rendezvous at star system X-9-Y, do you have these orders as well?”_

Krolia’s heart went cold.  No… 

_“Affirmative, captain.”_

_“Our transmission was interrupted.  Which planet are we looking for, specifically?”_

Stars above, please, any other planet… 

_“The third one from the main star.  Terrestrial, 70% covered in dihydrogen monoxide, atmosphere breathable.”_

No.  

_“Will we even need to breathe the atmosphere?  I was under the impression we would just blast the planet and be done with it.”_

_“Negative, captain.  Our orders are to search the planet.  Please refer to the order memo more carefully.”_

“Krolia…?”  Ken asked, concerned by the growing worry he could see on her features.  

Krolia took a deep breath.  “They’re coming.  The Galra are coming.  We have less than a day until they arrive.”  She grabbed her communicator off the bookshelf, ignoring Ken’s stricken look for now.  “I must call Kolivan.”  

To cope with the agonizing wait while the device connected and went through the Blade’s security, Krolia pulled back the curtain and peered out the window, sharp eyes scanning the cloudless sky.  Nothing looked amiss, and truthfully any ships would be too far away to see, but she couldn’t help the urge to check.  

The communicator flashed and Kolivan appeared.  “Krolia.  You aren’t due for a status update.”  

“Imperial ships are planning to converge on Earth within the next seventeen – possibly less – vargas.”  She wasted no time in explaining.  

“How do you know this?”  Kolivan frowned.  He wasn’t questioning her, simply confirming.

“Picked up radio signals of what seems to be Galra warships.  I’m not positive on their location.”  Krolia explained.  

“…Mommy?”  Keith had woken up, despite how quiet they were trying to be.  Ken immediately went to his side and told him they needed to be quiet right now.  Luckily, Kolivan seemed to be busy with something on his end and didn’t seem to notice the soft background noise on her end.  

“Tell me the frequency you’re on.”  He demanded.

“Frequency X-9-Y intersect E626 by H1134.”  Krolia read off the screen.  Kolivan repeated the frequency as he located it on his end.  

Quiet settled over the shack, broken only by the quiet chatter coming out of the radio and the near-silent whispers as Ken asked Keith to stay quiet.  Krolia kept an ear on the radio, but it was only more of the same; officers of various ranks discussing the orders to converge upon Earth, and a smattering of casual chitchat in between.

“We will send a team to assist you in the defense of Earth immediately.”  Kolivan said, once he had heard his fill of the radio chatter.  “For now, you will have to do what you can to hold off the fleet.”

Krolia’s eyes widened.  An entire fleet?  By herself?  

“I know what I’m asking of you, Krolia.”  Kolivan said gravely.  “But it’s all we have.  We should be able to reach you in time, but if they turn up to Earth before we can make it…” he trailed off, then sighed.  “We cannot let them get to the Blue Lion.”

“I understand.”  Krolia nodded.

“Keep me updated.”  Kolivan told her, then cut the connection.

Krolia took a deep breath as her communicator went dark, steeling herself.  She looked over and found Ken watching her carefully from his place on the bed, Keith cradled in his arms while he rubbed soothing circles into the boy's back.  Tension was thick in the air, thick enough to cut with the knife that she picked up for the first time in several months.  

"The Galra are coming."  Krolia said, her voice heavy.  "Kolivan is sending a team to assist me, but until they arrive... I will have to hold off the fleet myself."  

"How big is the fleet?"  Ken asked.  

"We don't know for certain."  Krolia admitted.  "Several warships and a score of fighter jets to each one is standard.  A dozen warships, perhaps more."  It was far, far more than she could handle by herself.  She could tell that Ken seemed to know this, too.  She could only hope that Keith did not realize the implications.  The cub was quiet, clutching his father's shirt, but he watched their conversation with wide eyes.     

Ken took a deep breath.  "What do you need to do?"  He asked.  

"I'll need to leave as soon as possible."  Krolia curled her hand around the hilt of her knife.  "I'll meet the fleet as far as I can and keep them away from Earth for as long as possible."  She was already moving around, pulling her suit from the small wardrobe.  

They knew they couldn't possibly ask their cub to go back to sleep, not with the flurry of activity, but Ken left him on the bed with a quiet "stay here, Keith" while he started readying water and food for her journey.  Krolia changed quickly upstairs and retrieved her pack and weapons belt from where they had been hidden in storage, sliding her knife into its sheath at the small of her back and checking her gun over critically.  It hadn't been used in so long, but it seemed to be in working condition.  

"Take my motorcycle.  You know where the cave is where we hid your ship."  Ken told her as he pressed rations into her hands.  She wondered if she would even need them, but she shoved them into her pack all the same.  Krolia shot him a questioning look; that motorcycle was his sole mode of transportation.  Without it, he would be stranded out here.  He shook his head.  "The cave isn't that far, only a few miles.  You need the speed more than I do.  I'll— _we'll_  hike out there and retrieve it, just leave the key with it.  It will be fine."  

She worried briefly how he would fare, taking a young child on a three-mile hike through the dry, inhospitable desert.  But Ken was smart and resourceful, and he would never willingly put Keith in danger.  He would figure something out.  She trusted him.  

Krolia took a deep breath and turned to face her cub, who was still watching them worriedly from the bed with his small hands fisted tight in the sheets.  He reached for her and she immediately gathered him into her arms, sitting on the edge of the bed and drawing him onto her lap.  "Keith..." She whispered against his hair, voice thick with emotion.  "I'm so sorry, Keith.  I have to go.  But I love you, and I want you to always remember that, okay?  I need you to be strong now, and do everything your daddy tells you to do.  Be strong, my brave little Keith."  She kissed his forehead as tears welled in her eyes.  "I love you.  I'm so sorry."  

She handed him off to Ken, pressed one last lingering – but not for nearly as long as she would have liked – kiss to her mate's lips, then took the keys he offered her and ran out the door of the shack.  Her heart broke as Keith cried out for her, confused and distraught while Ken tried to soothe him and tell him everything would be okay.  Their voices were soon lost in the roar of the motorcycle engine and the scrape of the wheels kicking up dry dirt and rocks, and then she was off, speeding over the moonlit desert landscape.  The cool wind whipping past her face ripped tears from her eyes, tears that didn't stop even when she activated her mask to cover her face.  They weren't truly from the temperature or the wind.

The cold, dry night air of the desert was enough to clear her head by the time she made it to the cave where her ship was hidden.  It was the most important lesson that had been pressed into her in her line of work; she could  _not_ afford to be controlled by her emotions.  She was a soldier, first and foremost.  That couldn't change.  Especially when she was the only thing standing between this planet and the might of the Galra Empire.  

Krolia cut the engine and left the motorcycle propped up against the wall deep in the cave, tucking the keys into a small pocket under the seat where Ken usually put his license.  Her ship was a bit dusty from disuse and the sandy environment, but it was nothing that would hamper the Galra tech that made up the ship.  She and Ken had repaired it to perfect condition and the controls hummed to life under her hands as she turned it on and moved it outside of the cave.  It had been so long since she had flown, but it was a skill she would never forget and her hands easily flicked over the controls as she readied the craft to take off.  To leave this place behind, almost certainly for the last time.  She would never see them again.  

Krolia froze with her hand hovering over the ignition.  This was it.  There was a very real possibility that she could die in this battle, and an even more real possibility that she would never see her little family ever again.  Even if she survived – and the odds were already so stacked against her – she would have to return to the front lines.  She would have to fight to keep them safe.  Keith would have to grow up without her.  He was so young... would he even remember her?  Ken could tell him how much she loved him, but it did little good if he had nothing to remember her by.  

Krolia cursed and slammed her hand down on the ignition.  Damn her, damn the Galra Empire, and damn whatever fate had brought her here, brought her  _happiness_ , only to tear it all away from her.  

She kept the craft low to the ground as she sped through the desert, the draft from her wings swirling dust behind her and rattling the sparse vegetation and cacti.  When the shack came into sight, she slammed on the brakes and skidded to a halt, fumbling with the seatbelts and leaping out of the ship before the engines had even cooled.  She rushed over the threshold of the shack, door slamming behind her.  

The shack was empty.  Empty and silent, and looking exactly as she had left it; the radio humming softly on the desk, the sheets on the bed rumpled, a couple of dishes in the sink... The only thing out of place was the suspicious lack of two beings, and the half-thrown-back rug on the floor.

Krolia dropped to her knees and knocked her fist against the trapdoor.  "Ken!  Keith!"  

She heard a muffled cry from her cub, then a moment later the door opened and Ken poked his head out, son on his hip.  "Krolia?!"  

"Mommy!"  Keith let go of his grip on Ken's shirt to reach for her and Krolia met him with her own arms, pulling him up from the cellar as Ken climbed out himself.  

"What are you doing here?"  Ken asked.  "I thought you had to leave—"

"I do.  I can't stay long."  Krolia set Keith on his feet and crouched down on one knee in front of him, reaching behind her and drawing out her sheathed knife.  "Keith, I want you to have this.  This knife has always symbolized a connection between me and my brothers and sisters in arms.  Now I want you to have it, and use it to remember the connection and bond between us.  It is a symbol of your heritage and I hope it can protect you when I cannot."  She placed the sheathed blade in his palms and curled her fingers over his to wrap them around the weapon.  "Luxite never dulls, Keith, and nor will my love for you, no matter what happens to me or how far the universe takes us."  She drew him close one last time, the knife pressed between their chests.  As a soldier, she had few possessions.  That knife and the bond it symbolized had been the most precious thing she had to her name for her entire adult life.  Until Keith came along, that is.  He outstripped it by light-years.  It was only fitting that he have it.  

Krolia took a deep breath and let go of her son with a shuddering exhale, reluctantly getting to her feet.  "I have to go, now."

"Wait," Ken pushed something thin and rectangular into her hands.  "Take this with you.  To remember us by."  

Krolia looked down and saw that it was a photograph.  A photograph of the three of them.  She didn't know when he had taken it, but it looked to be an early morning when Keith was still a baby and she was still tired enough to sleep through whatever movement had been caused by Ken holding up the camera over the three of them.  In the image, Krolia was asleep, her hair strewn over the pillow in the soft morning light, and Keith was hardly any better, with one sleepy violet eye open and his nose scrunched up in confusion, as if to wonder what his father was doing instead of sleeping.  And on his other side was Ken, holding the camera up with a sly, sweet smile on his lips, as if he knew when he took the photo that the sight of it would cause emotion to bubble up in her chest when she saw it.  And stars damn him, he was right.  

"Ken..." Krolia looked down at him desperately.  They had been over this; no photographs, no evidence that she had been there.  Nothing that any authorities could use against them, human or Galra.  

"I know.  I just... I needed you to have something."  Ken said, and as Keith's grip tightened around the blade in his hands, she understood.  Ken smiled sadly.  "It's the only copy.  I destroyed the film after developing that.  Everything is still safe, I promise."  

She nodded and tucked the photograph into her suit, keeping it right over her heart.  "Thank you."  

Ken lifted Keith up onto his hip, and the three of them shared one last hug.  The ache in her chest swelled and burned, and Krolia didn't know how she could possibly pull herself away.  Suddenly Ken went stiff in her arms.  "Krolia..."

She followed his worried gaze to the window and a spike of fear shot through her like an ion canon.  There was a ship in the sky.  A Galra warship.  It was so far away that it was just a bit smaller than the moon, but even that was dreadfully, frightfully, dangerously close.  And it would only get closer.  

She turned back to him, eyes and voice like steel.  "Go.  Get in the cellar and don't come out until it's safe."  

Krolia didn't wait to see if he would follow the order; she knew he would.  She sprinted back to her ship and took off faster than she ever had before, immediately gunning the engine and yanking the controls upward, higher and higher toward the warship.  She would stop it, even if it killed her.  Victory or death.

No...

If she died, there would be nothing stopping the enemy from invading her family's home.  Death was not an option.  The only way to protect them was to live.  

Victory was impossible, but death was unacceptable.

Krolia grit her teeth and headed straight for the warship.  She would have to do the impossible.    

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (T^T) I actually teared up a bit writing this chapter. 
> 
> Based on what we've seen of Krolia so far, I don't think she _wanted_ to leave Keith, because she regretted it when she said "I left you once, I'll never leave you again." I think she was caught between a rock and a hard place, and she had to make some difficult decisions. But I'm really excited to see how it all plays out in canon, hopefully when the new season comes out in a few days. And please, O Great Gods of Animation, _please don't kill off Krolia!_

**Author's Note:**

> Please let me know if you like this fic! I have a [ tumblr](http://gold-leeaf.tumblr.com/) and a [NSFW tumblr](https://bouquetofwhoopsiedaisies.tumblr.com/) if you want to see me scream about Voltron, or shoot me a request/commissh. 
> 
> Thanks for reading!


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